Deepankar Basu
Biographic Data
| ID | 3696533 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Deepankar Basu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Deepankar |
| FAMILY NAME | Basu |
| SIGNATURE | BASU D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5340-0524 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 51 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Technical Change and the Rate of Profit in Classical-Marxian Models of Economic Growth
I study the effect of viable technical change on the equilibrium profit rate in Classical-Marxian models of economic growth with alternative labor market closures. Capitalists adopt a new technique of production only if it is expected to increase the profit rate at the existing real wage rate. I consider three alternative closures: (a) constant real wage rate (labor surplus economy), (b) constant wage share (advanced capitalist economy with stron…
Economic Inequality in India over the Last Three Decades: A Tale of Two Data Sources
In this paper, I discuss the evolution of economic inequality over the past three decades in India. I use two different data sources for the analysis: distribution of consumption expenditure data from published NSS reports and distribution of pre-tax national income data from the website of the World Inequality Database (WID). In comparison to WID, NSS data not only underestimates the level of inequality at any point in time, but it can also give…
World Profit Rates, 1960–2019
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 …
Intensification of Labor and the Rate and Form of Exploitation
Does the intensification of labor increase the rate of exploitation? Does it produce absolute surplus value or relative surplus value? This article develops a framework to answer these questions by incorporating intensity of labor in the widely used linear model of production, both in its one- and two-department forms. We show that (a) an intensification of labor always leads to an increase in the rate of exploitation, and (b) the increase in the…
Labor Intensification and Value Production: A Rejoinder
In this note, we provide a rejoinder to Rieu (2024), which had presented a critical commentary on our analysis of the intensification of labor in Basu, Haas, and Moraitis (2024). JEL Classification: B51, C02
To Reform and to Procure: An Analysis of the Role of the State and the Market in Indian Agriculture
Since the early 2000s, some Indian states started allowing private traders to buy directly from farmers outside the state-regulated market system. The experience of these states can shed light on the impact of market-oriented reforms and the role of public procurement. Using individual-level National Sample Survey Data on agricultural wages and a new dataset on state-level average real farm income per cultivator for 18 major Indian states between…
A Neoclassical Theory of Labor Exploitation: Some Comments
In this note, we comment on two aspects of the analysis presented in Eswaran’s article “The Nature of Labor’s Vulnerability to Exploitation.” First, we compare Eswaran’s neoclassical views of labor exploitation with the standard Marxian understanding of labor exploitation. Second, we delve deeper into Eswaran’s model and raise a set of questions about his analysis. JEL Classification: P12, J22, B14
Exploitation of Labor or Exploitation of Commodities
Attempts to use commodities to construct theories of value and use such value theory to claim that, in capitalism, commodities can be exploited, just like labor is, rest on two conceptual flaws: (a) failure to distinguish between labor and labor power and (b) failure to distinguish labor power and other commodities. One way to avoid these conceptual mistakes is to use the labor theory of value. JEL Classification: B51
A Reformulated Version of Marx’s Theory of Ground Rent Shows That There Cannot Be Any Absolute Rent
This article develops a simple theoretical model to analyze Marx’s theory of ground rent. Using the model, I demonstrate two important results. First, if we take capital outlay as exogenously given, then total ground rent can be decomposed into the three components: differential rent of the first variety (DRI), differential rent of the second variety (DRII), and absolute rent (AR). Second, if we let the amount of capital outlay on each plot of la…
The Logic of Capital: An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory
This book presents the main economic argument developed by Marx in the three volumes of Capital in a coherent and comprehensive manner. The first part presents the main economic argument contained in the Capital in a coherent and comprehensive manner. It also delves into three long-standing debates in Marxist political economy: the transformation problem, the Okishio theorem, and theories of exploitation and oppression. Starting with discussions …
Majoritarian politics and hate crimes against religious minorities: Evidence from India, 2009–2018
Profitability or Industrial Relations: What Explains Manufacturing Performance across Indian States
This article begins with a critique of the well-known claim by Besley and Burgess concerning the negative impact of labour regulation on organized sector manufacturing performance in India. In the second part of the article, the authors use a state-level panel data set for the period 1969-2005 to analyse the relative importance of profitability (rate of profit as a percentage of the total replacement cost of capital stock) and industrial disputes…
Reproduction and Crisis in Capitalist Economies
An economic crisis in capitalism is a deep and prolonged interruption of the economy-wide circuit of capital. Crises emerge from within the logic of capitalism’s operation, and are manifestations of the inherently contradictory process of capital accumulation. The Marxist tradition conceptualizes two types of crisis tendencies in capitalism: a crisis of deficient surplus value and a crisis of excess surplus value. Two mechanisms that become impor…
Quantitative Empirical Research in Marxist Political Economy: A Selective Review
This paper surveys quantitative empirical research in some key areas of Marxist political economy. Following an introductory section on the value controversy, the paper surveys quantitative empirical research on the following topics: (a) Marxist national accounts, (b) classical‐Marxist theory of relative prices, (c) probabilistic political economy, (d) profitability analysis and (e) classical‐Marxian theories of growth and technical change. I end…
The Effect of Public Health Expenditure on Infant Mortality: Evidence from a Panel of Indian States, 1983–1984 to 2011–2012
Using a panel data set of Indian states between 1983–1984 and 2011–2012, this paper studies the impact of public health expenditure on the infant mortality rate (IMR), after controlling for other relevant covariates like political competition, per capita income, female literacy, and urbanisation. We find that public expenditure on health care reduces the IMR. Our baseline specification shows that an increase in public health expenditure by 1 per …
Social Hierarchies and Public Distribution of Food in Rural India
In this paper, we develop a simple model to show that consumption of PDS food grains is significantly different between rich and poor households in states in which the PDS functions relatively well; in states in which the PDS is non-functional, the difference is not significant. Using household-level data from three recent thick rounds of the consumption expenditure survey (2004–2005, 2009–2010, and 2011–2012), we find evidence in support of the …
Fuelling Calorie Intake Decline: Household-Level Evidence from Rural India
The Reserve Army of Labor in the Postwar U. S. Economy
The reserve army of labor is a structural necessity of capitalism. By constantly keeping a part of the labor force unemployed or under-employed but potentially available for capital to draw on if needed, the reserve army of labor maintains the viability of capital accumulation by inflicting enormous costs on the working class. In the postwar U. S. economy, the reserve army has increased from about 5-6 million in the early 1950s to around 25-30 mi…
The Maoist Movement in India: Some Political Economy Considerations
Revolutionary Left movements in India base their programme of radical social transformation on an understanding of Indian society that borrows heavily from the 1930s formulation of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). The characterization of Indian society as semi-feudal and semi-colonial, and the elevation of the contradiction between feudalism and the broad masses as the primary (and basic) contradiction, seem to have been influenced by the progr…
Son targeting fertility behavior: Some consequences and determinants
This article draws out some implications of son targeting fertility behavior and studies its determinants. We demonstrate that such behavior has two notable implications at the aggregate level: (a) girls have a larger number of siblings (sibling effect), and (b) girls are born at relatively earlier parities within families (birth-order effect). Empirically testing for these effects, we find that both are present in many countries in South Asia, S…
Son targeting fertility behavior: Some consequences and determinants
This article draws out some implications of son targeting fertility behavior and studies its determinants. We demonstrate that such behavior has two notable implications at the aggregate level: (a) girls have a larger number of siblings (sibling effect), and (b) girls are born at relatively earlier parities within families (birth-order effect). Empirically testing for these effects, we find that both are present in many countries in South Asia, S…
Majoritarian politics and hate crimes against religious minorities: Evidence from India, 2009–2018
Fuelling Calorie Intake Decline: Household-Level Evidence from Rural India
World Profit Rates, 1960–2019
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 …
The Maoist Movement in India: Some Political Economy Considerations
Revolutionary Left movements in India base their programme of radical social transformation on an understanding of Indian society that borrows heavily from the 1930s formulation of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). The characterization of Indian society as semi-feudal and semi-colonial, and the elevation of the contradiction between feudalism and the broad masses as the primary (and basic) contradiction, seem to have been influenced by the progr…
The Reserve Army of Labor in the Postwar U. S. Economy
The reserve army of labor is a structural necessity of capitalism. By constantly keeping a part of the labor force unemployed or under-employed but potentially available for capital to draw on if needed, the reserve army of labor maintains the viability of capital accumulation by inflicting enormous costs on the working class. In the postwar U. S. economy, the reserve army has increased from about 5-6 million in the early 1950s to around 25-30 mi…
Son targeting fertility behavior: Some consequences and determinants
This article draws out some implications of son targeting fertility behavior and studies its determinants. We demonstrate that such behavior has two notable implications at the aggregate level: (a) girls have a larger number of siblings (sibling effect), and (b) girls are born at relatively earlier parities within families (birth-order effect). Empirically testing for these effects, we find that both are present in many countries in South Asia, S…
The Reserve Army of Labor in the Postwar U. S. Economy
The reserve army of labor is a structural necessity of capitalism. By constantly keeping a part of the labor force unemployed or under-employed but potentially available for capital to draw on if needed, the reserve army of labor maintains the viability of capital accumulation by inflicting enormous costs on the working class. In the postwar U. S. economy, the reserve army has increased from about 5-6 million in the early 1950s to around 25-30 mi…
The Maoist Movement in India: Some Political Economy Considerations
Revolutionary Left movements in India base their programme of radical social transformation on an understanding of Indian society that borrows heavily from the 1930s formulation of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). The characterization of Indian society as semi-feudal and semi-colonial, and the elevation of the contradiction between feudalism and the broad masses as the primary (and basic) contradiction, seem to have been influenced by the progr…
Fuelling Calorie Intake Decline: Household-Level Evidence from Rural India
Social Hierarchies and Public Distribution of Food in Rural India
In this paper, we develop a simple model to show that consumption of PDS food grains is significantly different between rich and poor households in states in which the PDS functions relatively well; in states in which the PDS is non-functional, the difference is not significant. Using household-level data from three recent thick rounds of the consumption expenditure survey (2004–2005, 2009–2010, and 2011–2012), we find evidence in support of the …
Quantitative Empirical Research in Marxist Political Economy: A Selective Review
This paper surveys quantitative empirical research in some key areas of Marxist political economy. Following an introductory section on the value controversy, the paper surveys quantitative empirical research on the following topics: (a) Marxist national accounts, (b) classical‐Marxist theory of relative prices, (c) probabilistic political economy, (d) profitability analysis and (e) classical‐Marxian theories of growth and technical change. I end…
The Effect of Public Health Expenditure on Infant Mortality: Evidence from a Panel of Indian States, 1983–1984 to 2011–2012
Using a panel data set of Indian states between 1983–1984 and 2011–2012, this paper studies the impact of public health expenditure on the infant mortality rate (IMR), after controlling for other relevant covariates like political competition, per capita income, female literacy, and urbanisation. We find that public expenditure on health care reduces the IMR. Our baseline specification shows that an increase in public health expenditure by 1 per …
Reproduction and Crisis in Capitalist Economies
An economic crisis in capitalism is a deep and prolonged interruption of the economy-wide circuit of capital. Crises emerge from within the logic of capitalism’s operation, and are manifestations of the inherently contradictory process of capital accumulation. The Marxist tradition conceptualizes two types of crisis tendencies in capitalism: a crisis of deficient surplus value and a crisis of excess surplus value. Two mechanisms that become impor…
Profitability or Industrial Relations: What Explains Manufacturing Performance across Indian States
This article begins with a critique of the well-known claim by Besley and Burgess concerning the negative impact of labour regulation on organized sector manufacturing performance in India. In the second part of the article, the authors use a state-level panel data set for the period 1969-2005 to analyse the relative importance of profitability (rate of profit as a percentage of the total replacement cost of capital stock) and industrial disputes…
The Logic of Capital: An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory
This book presents the main economic argument developed by Marx in the three volumes of Capital in a coherent and comprehensive manner. The first part presents the main economic argument contained in the Capital in a coherent and comprehensive manner. It also delves into three long-standing debates in Marxist political economy: the transformation problem, the Okishio theorem, and theories of exploitation and oppression. Starting with discussions …
Majoritarian politics and hate crimes against religious minorities: Evidence from India, 2009–2018
A Reformulated Version of Marx’s Theory of Ground Rent Shows That There Cannot Be Any Absolute Rent
This article develops a simple theoretical model to analyze Marx’s theory of ground rent. Using the model, I demonstrate two important results. First, if we take capital outlay as exogenously given, then total ground rent can be decomposed into the three components: differential rent of the first variety (DRI), differential rent of the second variety (DRII), and absolute rent (AR). Second, if we let the amount of capital outlay on each plot of la…
Exploitation of Labor or Exploitation of Commodities
Attempts to use commodities to construct theories of value and use such value theory to claim that, in capitalism, commodities can be exploited, just like labor is, rest on two conceptual flaws: (a) failure to distinguish between labor and labor power and (b) failure to distinguish labor power and other commodities. One way to avoid these conceptual mistakes is to use the labor theory of value. JEL Classification: B51
Intensification of Labor and the Rate and Form of Exploitation
Does the intensification of labor increase the rate of exploitation? Does it produce absolute surplus value or relative surplus value? This article develops a framework to answer these questions by incorporating intensity of labor in the widely used linear model of production, both in its one- and two-department forms. We show that (a) an intensification of labor always leads to an increase in the rate of exploitation, and (b) the increase in the…
Labor Intensification and Value Production: A Rejoinder
In this note, we provide a rejoinder to Rieu (2024), which had presented a critical commentary on our analysis of the intensification of labor in Basu, Haas, and Moraitis (2024). JEL Classification: B51, C02
To Reform and to Procure: An Analysis of the Role of the State and the Market in Indian Agriculture
Since the early 2000s, some Indian states started allowing private traders to buy directly from farmers outside the state-regulated market system. The experience of these states can shed light on the impact of market-oriented reforms and the role of public procurement. Using individual-level National Sample Survey Data on agricultural wages and a new dataset on state-level average real farm income per cultivator for 18 major Indian states between…
A Neoclassical Theory of Labor Exploitation: Some Comments
In this note, we comment on two aspects of the analysis presented in Eswaran’s article “The Nature of Labor’s Vulnerability to Exploitation.” First, we compare Eswaran’s neoclassical views of labor exploitation with the standard Marxian understanding of labor exploitation. Second, we delve deeper into Eswaran’s model and raise a set of questions about his analysis. JEL Classification: P12, J22, B14
Economic Inequality in India over the Last Three Decades: A Tale of Two Data Sources
In this paper, I discuss the evolution of economic inequality over the past three decades in India. I use two different data sources for the analysis: distribution of consumption expenditure data from published NSS reports and distribution of pre-tax national income data from the website of the World Inequality Database (WID). In comparison to WID, NSS data not only underestimates the level of inequality at any point in time, but it can also give…
World Profit Rates, 1960–2019
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 …
Technical Change and the Rate of Profit in Classical-Marxian Models of Economic Growth
I study the effect of viable technical change on the equilibrium profit rate in Classical-Marxian models of economic growth with alternative labor market closures. Capitalists adopt a new technique of production only if it is expected to increase the profit rate at the existing real wage rate. I consider three alternative closures: (a) constant real wage rate (labor surplus economy), (b) constant wage share (advanced capitalist economy with stron…
Economics (17 works) · Political Economy and Marxism (9 works) · Economic Theory and Policy (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Mathematics (7 works) · Neoclassical economics (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Microeconomics (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Sociology (5 works)