Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/157989 
Year of Publication: 
1992
Publisher: 
The Bichler and Nitzan Archives, Toronto
Abstract: 
The thesis offers a new framework for inflation as a process of restructuring. Contrary to existing theories of inflation, which tend to take structure and institutions as given for the purpose of analysis, we argue that inflation could be understood only in terms of ongoing structural and institutional change. In the modern context of large-scale business enterprise, inflationary restructuring arises as an integral part of capital accumulation. On the aggregate level, inflation appears as stagflation, with the expansion of pecuniary values in the 'business' sphere depending on the strategic limitation of productive activity in the 'industrial' realm. This stagflationary interaction between 'business' and 'industry' is, in turn, linked (on the disaggregate level) to the dynamic formation and reformation of 'distributional coalitions' and the process of aggregate concentration. An empirical analysis of the U.S. experience between the early 1950s and the late 1980s reveals two regimes of inflationary restructuring: the first, which lasted until 1970, involved rapid increases in aggregate concentration with relatively modest stagflation, whereas the second, post-1970 regime consisted of stable (or even declining) concentration amidst severe stagflation.
Subjects: 
accumulation
aggregate
concentration
breadth
business enterprise
capital
capitalism
centralization
competition
conflict
corporation
credit
crisis
debt
depth
disequilibrium
distribution
distributional coalitions
dual economy
employment
equilibrium
equity
expectations
finance
growth
hedonic indices
inflation
institutionalism
marginalism
methodology
monopoly
neoclassical economics
oligopoly
ownership
politics
power
price
profit
quality change
risk
ruling class
sabotage
stagflation
stagnation
state
stock market
technology
unemployment
United States
US
Veblen
violence
URL of the first edition: 
Additional Information: 
Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Department of Economics, McGill University, 1992
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Doctoral Thesis

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