[PEN-L:4565] Kondratiev waves

["Andrew J. English" <aenglish@xxxxxxx>]

Is there anything to the notion of Kondratiev waves?
I tend to be skeptical, since the underlying technology
of society changes so much during the 50-year "cycle"
and because of the impact of large political events
(World War Two for example), that such a large scale
cycle could be governing the world economy.
Some "marxists" I know swear by Kondratiev's thesis,however.
Is there any real basis to it, in economic theory,
Marxist or otherwise?

-Andy English
Phoenix Arizona

On Fri, 31 Mar 1995, Carl H.A. Dassbach wrote:

> >if Sachs says "we're" about to enjoy a period of long-term
> >prosperity, maybe "we" refers to people like him, Harvard
> >profs, etc., who are insulated from the competition that's
> >producing a world-wide downward equalization of wages, living
> >standards, environmental conditions, and the like.
> >
>
> Make sense to me but I doubt that's what he had my mind.  More likely, his
> statement was motivated by  a simplistic beleif that we have hit the trough
> of the Kondratiev b-phase (after all, its been about 25 years - 1970-1995)
> and things should, if ND Kondratiev was right, be picking up again.  Maybe,
> but there is no guarantee that the US will ride this upswing.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Carl H.A. Dassbach                                   E-mail:   DASSBACH@xxxxxxx
> Dept. of Social Sciences                            Phone:   (906)487-2115
> Michigan Technological University              Fax:       (906)487-2468
> Houghton,  MI   49931    USA
>
>