战后美国利润率长期变动的研究

【作者】 牛文俊；

【导师】 张彤玉；

【作者基本信息】 南开大学 ， 政治经济学， 2009， 博士

【摘要】 资本主义作为一个历史制度,其增长与衰退主要取决于资本积累,而利润率是决定和反映资本积累状况的核心指标,是决定宏观经济稳定与否的重要因素,也是划分资本主义各个发展阶段的最佳标准。因此,利润率问题就成为研究整个资本主义制度的核心问题,对利润率问题的研究一直是马克思主义经济学研究的核心问题之一,其中最著名的研究成果就是利润率下降规律。自从马克思的“利润率趋向下降”规律问世以来,就不断的遭到批评。本文综述了一些学者对马克思利润率趋向下降规律的批评,也分析了另外一些学者对这些批评的反驳。然而事实是,即使在赞同利润率趋向下降规律的马克思主义学者中,就利润率下降的原因也存在很大分歧。自从20世纪70年代以来,不少经济学家尝试计算美国利润率并对其进行研究,但结果并非完全一致,这主要是由于计算固定资本的方法不同,以及公司和政府提供的利润信息严重失真造成的,而且在这些研究中,对利润率长期变动的研究很少。本文基于以往的研究,并且在前人研究的启发下,对战后美国利润率长期变动进行了研究。首先,本文对战后美国利润率进行了重新计算,笔者对其计算方法做了改进,从生产劳动和非生产劳动区分入手,探讨了马克思的利润率理论范畴和当今西方核算体系的对应关系,使其计算结果更接近马克思所讲的利润率。本文延伸了利润率的测度区间,采用最新的研究数据,数据截取1948-2006年。此后本文分别计算了私人部门和公司部门的利润率。通过计算发现战后美国私人部门和公司部门的利润率有相似的变动趋势。其次,本文把利润率先分解为利润份额和产出资本比两个变量,用产出资本比来反映技术变化,用利润份额来反映收入分配制度。但由于需求变化,能力利用率也通过利润份额和产出资本比间接影响利润率。因此,利润率实际受上述三个变量的影响。本文通过对战后美国利润率进行变量分解,首先用stata回归分析,求出产出资本比和利润份额对利润率变动的解释份额,然后再分别剔除掉能力利用率对利润率的间接影响,得出每一个变量对战后利润率变动的贡献值,其中每一个变量分别代表一种利润率下降观点,产出资本比用来代表资本技术构成提高论、利润份额用来代表工资挤压论、能力利用率代表消费不足论。通过研究发现:战后美国利润率有下降趋势,其中起主要作用的是产出资本比下降,即资本技术构成有不断提高的趋势。再次,本文对战后美国利润率进行了分期研究,研究在各个不同时期三个变量对利润率变动所起的作用。笔者发现战后美国利润率的波动大致分为四个阶段:1948-1966年上升阶段,其变动原因是由产出资本比上升和利润份额上升引起的;1966-1979年利润率下降阶段,其变动原因是由产出资本比下降和利润份额下降引起的;1979-1997年利润率上升阶段,其变动原因是由于产出资本比上升和利润份额上升引起的;1997-2006年利润率下降阶段,其变动原因是由于产出资本比下降和能力利用率不足引起的。总之,不同时期利润率的变动原因是不同的。最后,通过对利润率和经济波动的实证研究发现,二者有时同时变动,有时前者先于后者,利润率可以作为经济波动的先行指标。通过对曼德尔长波理论、社会积累结构长波理论和熊彼特长波理论的分析,笔者认为现存的三种长波理论实际上并不矛盾,只是强调的重点不一样,它们是相互补充的。因为有利的制度环境、技术革命及利润率的变化是影响经济波动的主要因素,而有利的制度环境,技术革命都会影响利润率或利润率的预期。较高的利润率或利润率的乐观预期,会引致大量投资,从而使经济进入繁荣期;反之,较低的利润率或悲观的预期,会减少投资动机,导致经济进入衰退期。因此,利润率的变动和特定时期的技术、制度紧密相连,所以分析长波的内在机制应结合研究期的主要技术变化和制度特征来理解。在此研究基础上,笔者结合美国新自由主义时期的技术变化和制度特征,分析了新自由主义时期美国经济变动的深层原因,揭示了当前美国经济处于长波下降阶段的具体情况,证实了马克思利润率下降理论的科学性,并希望能给我们研究世界经济的走势带来一定的启示。更多还原

【Abstract】 Capitalism is a historical institution. Its development and recession depend on capital accumulation. Profit rate is a core indicator to reflect and determine the status of capital accumulation. Moreover, it’s also an important factor to determine whether the macroeconomic is stable or not. In fact, profit rate is the best benchmark to divide capitalism into various stages for further study. Therefore, profit rate has become the core problem of the research of capitalist institution. Profit rate is also one of the core problems of Marxist Economics, in which one of the most famous research results is the law of the falling tendency of the profit rate. Since its emergence, the law of the falling tendency of the profit rate has met much criticism. This paper brings together some criticism and also some opposition to this criticism. However even there are many Marxist scholars who agree on the law of the falling tendency of profit rate, among them exists disagreements on the reason why the profit rate would fall.Since the 20th Century, many economists have tended to calculate profit rate and study it. But their results are different mainly due to their different ways of calculating the fixed capital and the distortion of profit provided by companies and governments. However there are very few researches about the long term changes of the profit rate. Based on and inspired by the previous studies, this paper studies the long term changes of profit rate in the post war United States.First of all, this paper re-calculates the profit rate of the post war US. Due to the data availability and the two world wars, the data is from 1948-2006.I have improved the method of the calculation, extending the interval of the profit rate and using the latest research data. By calculating the profit rate of the private sector and corporate sector, I have found that the profit rates in these two sectors have very similar trend of fluctuation in the long term.Secondly, this paper divides the profit rate into profit share and output-capital ratio, which reflect income distribution institution and technological changes. When the utilization of capacity is sufficient, the output-capital ratio reflects the pure changes in technology. But because of the changes in demand, the utilization of capacity and output-capital ratio will change. Moreover because the change rate of employment is slower than that of production, the profit share will change. This will lead to the changes of labor productivity, which will in turn cause the profit rate to change. The utilization of capacity indirectly affects the profit rate through profit share and output-capital ratio. So in fact, the profit rate is affected by these three factors. Besides the impact of the utilization of capacity, the rest impact on profit rate comes from the output-capital ratio and the profit share. Every impact factor represents a kind of opinion on the law of the falling tendency of the profit rate. The output-capital ratio represents the opinions of technical composition of capital, profit share represents the opinions of the wage squeeze and the utilization of capacity represents the opinions of the lack of consuming.Thirdly, this paper studies the profit rate of the post war US by the latest statistical software and research the impact of the three factors in various stages. Through this study I have found that there is a falling tendency of the profit rate in the post war US and the output to capital ratio is the most important factor. That is to say, the technical composition of capital has an improving tendency. At least Marx’s law of the falling tendency of the profit rate still works in the post war US. There are four stages of the profit rate change in the post war US: The profit rate rose from 1948-1966, during which the main factor to influence the rate were output-capital ratio and profit share. From 1966-1979 the profit rate fell and the main impact came from the falling of the output-capital ratio and profit share. From 1979-1997, the profit rate were at a rising stage and the main impact came from the rising of the output-capital ratio and profit share. From 1997-2006 there was a falling tendency in profit rate. At this period the falling of the output-capital ratio and the lack of utilization of capacity played the most important role. And then I explore the reason why the profit rate fluctuated from the aspect of institution and technology respectively.Finally, with the research of the profit rate and the economic fluctuation I find that sometimes they changed simultaniously, while some other time, profit rate changed before the economic fluctuation. So the profit rate can be used as the leading indicators of economic fluctuations. In the three long-wave theories, favorable institutional environment, technological revolution and the changes in profit rate have the main impact on the economic fluctuation. Favorable institutional environment and technological revolution can affect the profit rate and the expectation of the profit rate. And higher profit rate and the optimistic expectations of profit rate will lead to substantial investment in the economy and made the economy step into a booming period. On the contrary lower profit margins or pessimistic expectations will reduce the motivation to invest and the economy would enter a recession stage. Therefore, although the three existing long-wave theories have different focuses, they are not contradictive but complement to each other. The change in profit rate is related to technology and institution. Therefore, the analysis of the internal mechanism for long-wave can not be attributed to a single factor, but should be combined with the main changes of the technical and the institution. On the basis of the research above and the changes of technology and institution at the neoliberalism time of US, I analyse the internal reasons why US economy changed at the neoliberalism time and explain the current position of US economy, which is at the decline stage in the long-wave cycle.更多还原