WP Number: 4

WP Number: 4WP Title: Calculation and formulation of qualitative and quantitative measures of competition
Starting Month: 7Ending Month: 12Person Months (PMs): 3.02

Objectives

To describe the qualitative characteristics and inquire into the quantitative aspects of capitalist competition in sectors of the Greek economy

Description of Work

1. Our goal is to answer the following questions in order to get insight into the state of competition:

a. Do we find evidence of oligopoly/monopoly in sectors of the Greek economy?
b. Is mark-up pricing consistent with the evidence from sectors of the Greek economy?
c. Do profit rates equalize across sectors?
d. Is there a positive relationship between profit margins and capital-output ratios?
e. What is the relationship between the variability of the profit margin and the capital-output ratio?

Tasks

1. Inquire the existence of a tendency of the profit rate to converge across economic sectors
2. Inquire the existence of a positive correlation between the profit margin and the capital-output ratio
3. Inquire the existence of a negative correlation between the variability of the average profit rate the capital-output ratio
4. Present the qualitative evidence for monopoly/oligopoly structures in relevant sectors
5. Write a report on the tendency of the profit rate to equalize across economic sectors and the possible qualitative characteristics of the equalization process. Specifically report the state of competition for each economic sector classifying the sector as competitive or monopolistic

Deliverables

Deliverable D4: A report of the findings that includes the code used in the econometrics program

Milestones

2nd Milestone: Basic estimations completed