Profits, Deficits and Instability

The papers drawn together in this book seek to make a contribution to an important area in economics: the study of profit. Business accounting defines profits as the excess of total revenue minus total costs. On the other hand, in economic theory profits have been variously defined on the basis of what is being measured and for what purpose, i.e. as the return to ownership or the return to entrepreneurship, and as national income profits or real profits.The concept of profits, however, cannot and should not be reduced simply to the inquiry of measurement, but rather to its role within the workings of an economic system. The contributions to this volume provide original insights into the crucial questions of interrelationships between profits, corporate investment and financing activity, the causes of instability and government deficits, and the secular and cyclical changes in production and employment.