Wages and profits in the capitalist economy : the impact of monopolistic power on macroeconomic performance in the USA and UK

Wages and Profits in the Capitalist Economy provides an incisive study of the impact of monopolistic power on macroeconomic performance in the USA and the UK since 1945, within a post-Kaleckian framework. It provides new evidence to suggest that the implications of monopolistic power, in both product and labour markets, are important in understanding macroeconomic performance. It argues that the rise and fall in profitability that accompanies the cycle of boom and recession is indicative of the operation of oligopolistic markets. Furthermore, the political economy of the distribution of income exacerbates macroeconomic instability. The book concludes that traditional Keynesian approaches favouring solutions to increase economic growth, and neoclassical approaches advocating supply-side policies to suppress conflict over distribution, may offer little prospect of long-term economic stability