The Problem of Absorbing All the Available Labor Force and Capital Composition

Notes

1. Remember the new law approved by the European Parliament authorizing imprisonment of families (including children) of illegal residents for up to 18 months prior to their deportation.

2. For example, in 2002 in Mexico 13.5 million workers were self-employed or were relatives without wage of a total labor force of 41.1 million; while in the USA 9.8 million workers were in that condition from a total labor force of 124.6 million. Data for the USA were taken from Household Data Bureau of Labor Statistics (2003). Mexican data come from Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión Social (2003).

3. “Capitalist production can by no means content itself with the quantity of disposable labour-power which the natural increase of population yields. It requires for its unrestricted activity an industrial reserve army which is independent of these natural limits” (Marx 1979: 788).

4. “Remember specially that unemployment at large, as clearly detachable from the personal deficiencies of the unemployed was unknown in the Middle Ages, except as a consequence of social catastrophes, such as the devastations produced by wars, civil or epidemics” (Schumpeter 1971: 257).

5. That is generally not complied with because it is necessary that the vectors in both countries conform to P_A = kP_B , i.e. they should be collinear.

6. The estimations are based on data with constant prices, but whether or not that modifies the results should be further studied, because the ratios we have worked with are in current prices.

7. See by example Tsoulfidis (2008).

8. Y* is, in general, not equal to Y; hence P_AY could be different to C_BAP_BY_B. However, because Y* is a subset of Y that can be seen as a statistical sample it is possible to assume P_AY = C_BAP_BY_B. In any case, this is not a problem of our deduction but a practical one of all empirical work using PPP.