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The declining gender wage gap (GWG) and the wage-productivity decoupling (WPD) are two emerging phenomena for the United States since the 1980s. This article proposes an extension to the usual decomposition method of the profit rate to account for both the GWG and the WPD on aggregate income distribution. It then uses this framework to study the US manufacturing sector from 1960 to 2017. It suggests that gender wage inequality was a source of profitability, especially before 1986, but which was slowly petered out. Since 2001, increases in the profit share have mostly been due to the WPD. These results highlight the relevance of gender-based inequality in the more traditional analysis of the profit rate dynamics. JEL Classification: B51, E11, E25, J16 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a short-run neo-Kaleckian model to investigate the interplay of the functional and personal distribution of income and their impact on growth. Personal distribution becomes relevant in light of the institutionalist hypothesis of consumption emulation, which makes aggregate saving dependent on the concentration of wages and profits. A more equal distribution of wages and/or profits increases aggregate demand and the rate of capacity utilization. But the wage- or profit-led demand regime crucially depends on the difference between the propensity to save out of profits and that out of wages, as well as on the impact of changes in the profit and wage shares on the concentration of personal incomes. Preliminary evidence on Italy over the period 1980s–2010s highlights that demand regimes might be a relatively short-term and cyclical characteristic of that economy, with changes in the demand regime partly explained by changes in personal income distribution. JEL Classification: E11, D31, B52 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work looks at the contribution of profit-rate analysis to explain the industrialization process in economics. Using Indonesia for empirical study, we observe a link between the profit rate and international industrialization strategy. Elements of profit rate are discussed, including profit share, labor coefficient, and capital productivity. Elements of the industrialization process are also examined; specifically, gross import substitution, domestic supply growth, and ratio of import substitution. New period categorizations are made, demonstrating changes in the long run. We argue that profit-rate fluctuation has served to explain the success or failure of the industrialization process. This paper identifies two dimensions to this process. First, it argues that industrialization is achieved if the domestic market is established as indicated by a higher profit rate in the period when import substitution is high. Second, the establishment of a home market can occur by adopting the import substitution strategy, including output, investment, and labor. The adoption of import substitution can tackle the sectoral analysis of industrialization because it assumes the formation of a production pattern in domestic economy. JEL Classification: E220, E230, E240, E310, O110, O140 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between gender equality and economic democracy in worker cooperatives in the United States. A specific method for analyzing women’s status in worker cooperatives is proposed. Preliminary findings from a small-scale survey of U.S. worker cooperatives in 2001 are presented, showing that despite the egalitarian nature of cooperatives several gender inequalities persist. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The recent recovery continued a trend that started in the mid-1970s of a growing divergence between capital and labor incomes. This trend appears to be largely due to a shift in the balance of corporate governance. A growing concentration of financial assets among institutional investors was juxtaposed by a declining unionization rate. Consequently, institutional investors had the incentives and increasingly the ability to allocate a growing share of corporate resources towards capital, particularly in the form of share repurchases and dividend payouts instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]