23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Papers, 1996, vol. 43, March.

3

See: M. Bruno, ‘Does inflation really lower growth?’, Finance and Development, 1995, vol. 32, pp. 35–8; M. Bruno and W. Easterly, ‘Inflation and growth: In search of a stable relationship’, Review of Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, 1996, vol. 78, no. 3.

4

In the 1960s, Korea’s inflation rate was much higher than that of five Latin American countries (Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Peru and Colombia) and not much lower than that of Argentina. In the 1970s, the Korean inflation rate was higher than that found in Venezuela, Ecuador and Mexico, and not much lower than that of Colombia and Bolivia. The information is from A. Singh, ‘How did East Asia grow so fast? – Slow progress towards an analytical consensus’, 1995, UNCTAD Discussion Paper, no. 97, table 8.

5

There are many different ways to calculate profit rates, but the relevant concept here is returns on assets. According to S. Claessens, S. Djankov and L. Lang, ‘Corporate growth, financing, and risks in the decades before East Asia’s financial crisis’, 1998, Policy Research Working Paper, no. 2017, World Bank, Washington, DC, fig. 1, the returns on assets in forty-six developed and developing countries during 1988–96 ranged between 3.3 per cent (Austria) and 9.8 per cent (Thailand). The ratio ranged between 4 per cent and 7 per cent in forty of the forty-six countries; it was below 4 per cent in three countries and above 7 per cent in three countries. Another World Bank study puts the average profit rate for non-financial firms in ‘emerging market’ economies (middle-income countries) during the 1990s (1992–2001) at an even lower level of 3.1 per cent (net income/assets). See S. Mohapatra, D. Ratha and P. Suttle, ‘Corporate financing patterns and performance in emerging markets’, mimeo., March 2003,World Bank, Washington, DC.

6

C. Reinhart and K. Rogoff, This Time is Different(Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2008), p. 252, fig. 16.1.

THING 7

1

On Lincoln’s protectionist views, see my earlier book Kicking Away the Ladder (Anthem Press, London, 2002), pp. 27–8 and the references thereof.

2

This story is told in greater detail in my earlier books: Kicking Away the Ladderis a heavily referenced and annotated academic – but by no means difficult-to-read – monograph, focused particularly on trade policy; Bad Samaritans(Random House, London, 2007, and Bloomsbury USA, New York, 2008) covers a broader range of policy areas and is written in a more user-friendly way.

THING 8

1

For further evidence, see my recent book Bad Samaritans(Random House, London, 2007, and Bloomsbury USA, New York, 2008), ch. 4, ‘The Finn and the Elephant’, and R. Kozul-Wright and P. Rayment, The Resistible Rise of Market Fundamentalism(Zed Books, London, 2007), ch. 4.

THING 9

1

K. Coutts, A. Glyn and B. Rowthorn, ‘Structural change under New Labour’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2007, vol. 31, no. 5.

2

The term is borrowed from the 2008 report by the British government’s Department for BERR (Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform), Globalisation and the Changing UK Economy (2008).

3

B. Alford, ‘De-industrialisation’, ReFRESH, Autumn 1997, p. 6, table 1.

4

B. Rowthorn and K. Coutts, ‘De-industrialisation and the balance of payments in advanced economies’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2004, vol. 28, no. 5.

THING 10

1

T. Gylfason, ‘Why Europe works less and grows taller’, Challenge, 2007, January/February.

THING 11

1

P. Collier and J. Gunning, ‘Why has Africa grown slowly?’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1999, vol. 13, no. 3, p. 4.