[OPE-L:6529] Re: Re: Obsolesence

Allin Cottrell (cottrell@ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu)
Fri, 1 May 1998 14:00:48 -0400 (EDT)

On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, John R. Ernst wrote:

> I'd like to hear a bit more about the data you and
> Paul are comparing to the givens in my example. A
> circulating constant capital to variable capital ratio
> of 6:1 still does not strike me as odd.

The (UK, 101 sectors, 1984) data were presented in "Does Marx
Need to Transform?" (in Marxian Economics, A Reappraisal,
Ricardo Bellofiore, ed., Macmillan/St. Martin's, 1998). We
measured the flow organic composition as C/(S+V). This
magnitude had a mean of 0.846 and a standard deviation of 0.636.
Above a ratio of 2.5 there were just a few outliers.

Allin Cottrell.