Essays on Income Distribution, Capacity Utilization and Economic Growth.

摘要

This dissertation collects three papers that develop and extend the investment constrained model of growth and distribution.;In the first chapter of the dissertation I present the basic setup of the model, also christened as (Post) Keynesian, Kaleckian and structuralist. I show how within the structure of the investment constrained growth model it is implicit that a specific choice of causal relations where investment and demand play the most important role is made. I also present some extensions of the model, which take into account the role of government, the foreign sector as well as finance and money.;In the second chapter I examine the case of a non-linear distributive schedule. I show how its interaction with demand can produce multiple equilibria, and how this suggests that we need to redefine the concepts of wage- and profit- led economies. I estimate the demand and distribution schedule for the US economy using a 2SLS approach. My findings confirm the hypothesis of a non-linear distribution schedule, and therefore, the need to redefine the concepts wage- and profit-led growth.;The third chapter examines the endogeneity (or lack thereof) of the rate of capacity utilization in the long run within the context of the controversy surrounding the Kaleckian model of growth and distribution. After examining the factors that determine the utilization of resources, I provide economic justification for the adjustment of the desired rate of utilization towards the actual rate on behalf of a cost-minimizing firm. The cost minimizing firm has an incentive to increase the utilization of its capital if the rate of the returns to scale decreases as its production increases. I show that there is evidence in the theory and the empirical research that justify this behavior of returns to scale. Hence, the desired rate of utilization becomes endogenous.