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Article
World Profit Rates, 1960–2019
Review of Political Economy (2022)
  • Deepankar Basu
  • Julio Huato
  • Jesus Lara Juaregui
  • Evan Wasner
Abstract
In this paper we present estimates of the world (net) profit rate using country-level data from the Extended Penn World Table 7.0 and estimates of the world (gross) profit rate using industry-level data from the World Input Output Database. The country-aggregated world profit rate series spans the period from 1960 to 2019, and the industry-aggregated world profit rate series runs from 2000 to 2014. The country-aggregated world profit rate series displays a strong negative linear trend for the period 1960–1980 and a weaker negative linear trend from 1980 to 2019. A medium run decomposition analysis reveals that the decline in the world profit rate is driven by a decline in the output-capital ratio. The industry-aggregated world profit rate shows a negative linear trend for the period 2000–2014, which, once again, is driven by a fall in the output-capital ratio. We have created a World Profitability Dashboard to allow researchers to freely access the world profit rate series and the underlying data at country, industry, country-group and world levels of aggregation.
Keywords
  • Rate of profit
Disciplines
Publication Date
November, 2022
Citation Information
Deepankar Basu, Julio Huato, Jesus Lara Juaregui and Evan Wasner. "World Profit Rates, 1960–2019" Review of Political Economy (2022)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/deepankar_dasu/41/