From: Ian Wright (ian_paul_wright@HOTMAIL.COM)
Date: Fri Jan 23 2004 - 16:54:51 EST
Phil, >Am I right that the timescale is set by the average lag of wage >payments behind hiring? There is a lag distribution between being hired and getting paid, but this isn't what calibrates the time-scale, at least in my mind. A "month" is defined as N random selections from the set of N economic actors. This means that, on average, each actor acts once in each month. If an employer is selected, then workers get paid. So workers get paid on average once a month. Profits, GDP etc. are then measured every 12 such months. >There is no constant capital. Wages are paid in arrears, after >revenue is received , therefore there is no variable capital. How >then can there be any capital? One possibility is that there is >commodity capital which builds up during the month. At the end of >the month it will have built up to equal the revenue amount. Nothing to do >with wages. Wages are not paid in arrears after revenue is received. Within a month a firm can be selected and pay wages prior to receiving revenue. Or the firm may receive some revenue, at a later point pay wages, and then still later receive some more revenue, all in the same month. The model abstracts from commodity capital, but I think it might support the interpretation you give it. But I don't understand why you think there are no wages. >On page 24 you quote an average profit rate of 80.5%. This seems to >be a monthly rate. Is the annual rate then of the order of 1000%? It's a yearly rate, and perhaps better interpreted as the rate of surplus value, although I have hesitated over this, wishing to think about it more. The more important aspect is the shape of the profit distribution, rather than the actual figure. >I can only echo what Paul said: it would be very interesting to know >what the 55/45 wage share to profit share ratio depends on, i.e. what do >you vary to make it change? It ultimately depends on the average wage, although I have not systematically explored the parameter-space. I chose the average wage that gave me the closest qualitative and quantitative agreement with the empirical data. Many more questions can be asked of this model, but I haven't had time to work on it further. (The model is specified in sufficient detail for others to implement and experiment with it. It would only take a handful of days to code. Most of the work is handling the large amounts of data). Thanks for taking the time to read it, and your kind comments. ATB, -Ian. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
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