SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.17 issue33The Superiority of EconomistsRethinking Financial Deepening: Stability and Growth in Emerging Markets author indexsubject indexarticles search
Home Pagealphabetic serial listing  

Services on Demand

Journal

Article

Indicators

Related links

  • On index processCited by Google
  • Have no similar articlesSimilars in SciELO
  • On index processSimilars in Google

Share


Revista de Economía Institucional

Print version ISSN 0124-5996

Abstract

BICHLER, Shimshon  and  NITZAN, Jonathan. Capital accumulation: fiction and reality. Rev.econ.inst. [online]. 2015, vol.17, n.33, pp.45-71. ISSN 0124-5996.  https://doi.org/10.18601/01245996.v17n33.03.

What do economists mean when they talk about 'capital accumulation'? Surprisingly, the answer is anything but clear. The conventional view is that there are two types of capital, real and financial; that these two capitals should correspond to one another; and that, unfortunately, most of the time they don't: in general, goes the argument, the growth of financial capital tends to mismatch and distort the accumulation of real capital. The paper shows this 'mismatch thesis' - and therefore the ability of economists to explain accumulation - to be built on foundations of sand. Economists, it argues, cannot measure real capital in the first place, and the proxies they devise for that purpose entangle them in logical circularities and empirical impossibilities.

Keywords : Capital accumulation; capital real; capital financial.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )

 

Creative Commons License All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License