Capital Accumulation, Technological Progress And Labor Market Dynamics

Economic growth affects human well-being. The theory of economic growth is the most important branch in economics. Since the publish of Adam Smith's The Weath of Nations, after two hundreds years' development, western economic growth theory has developed a fruitful literature and has immense influence.This dissertation first expounds Marx's theory of economic growth, constructs an endogenous growth model based on Marx's theory of economic growth, and compare with western economic growth theory. At the end of the dissertation, some advices are provided on the research of china's economic growth and policies promoting growth and employment.This dissertation acknowledge that for studying economic growth, we should, following Marx, go deep into the historical development of production, and research the nature of economic growth and the driving force , mechanisms and characteristics of capitalist economic growth.The neoclassical theory of economic growth neglects the historical development of production, starts from the neoclassical production function, and engages in mathematical manipulation. So it has never touched the very nature of modern economic growth. The neoclassical theory of economic growth takes technology or knowledge as productive factor, combining with capital and labor to produce products. The technology or knowledge has scale and can be measured. No mater how they are produced——exogenously generated, being by-products of macroeconomic variable, acquired by inputting some resources, provided by central planner or enterprises in market competition, the technology or knowledge always can be guaranteed a positive rate of growth. This guarantees the positive rate of economic growth.Marx went into the historical development of production, analyzed the production of machines and industry, explored the fundamental reason of the improve of labor's productivity and the direction of technological progress. The reason of the improve of labor's productivity is that following the development of science and technology the machine and its tools can replace the work and capacity of man's organs such as hands, brain,etc., so the natural power can replace manpower. So the exaltation of labor's productivity by the machine production is immense.Marxian theory of economic growth holds that capital per worker is not independent with technology, in effect it reflects technology. Capital accumulation drives technological progress. The marginal products isn't deceasing so as neoclassical economic growth theory presumes, because the exaltation of labor's productivity by the machine production is immense.The promotion of technological progress and economic growth by capital accumulation is through the dynamic change of labor market. Capital accumulation is the organic combination of quantitative accumulation and qualitative change. Capital's simple quantitative accumulation promotes employment and the share of wages in income increases. This drives capitalists use machines substitutive of labor in the end. This releases workers from work and the employment rate and the share of wages in income decrease. Then capitalists conduct simple quantitative accumulation again. Through the process of capital accumulation and economic growth, the workers are released and absorbed periodically, there exists an average unemployment rate. Capitalist economy is bound to a certain ratio of workers being unemployed.This dissertation sets up a Marxian endogenous model of economic growth based on Marx's economic growth theory, so as to quantitatively analyze the trends of profit rate, wage rate and unemployment rate. This dissertation concludes that if the characteristic of R&D and labor market are unchanged, then the profit rate, wage' share in income and unemployment rate tend to be constant.New growth theory regards human capital as the engine of economic growth. The Marxian economic growth theory presented by this dissertation posits another explanation on the relationship between human capital and economic growth: the exaltation of human capital is the result of economic growth.