I'm not sure I want to get into a full blown debate over Kondratiev as this has been done ad nauseum on pen-l and some other places in the past (see appropriate archives). I would simply note the following:
1) Most professional economists don't believe in K-waves. But then most professional economists don't believe in business cycles of any shorter period oscillations either.
2) There are several competing theories of explanation, but the leading one, favored by Kondratiev himself, involves major technological innovations and adaptations.
3) The theory fits with the "golden age" upswing after WW II being followed by a long bad period after. Of course the periodicity does not have to be regular (and Richard Goodwin presented a model of chaotic K-waves in JEBO in 1986, ooooooh!), but this would suggest that we are in the early stages of the next upswing, possibly driven by computer technology and the awareness of this being the underlying force behind the recent several years of otherwise off-the-wall stock market price increases.
5) K-waves are long waves and do not rule out shorter term recessions during their upswings. Thus, we may at the front end of a K-wave upswing, but I am fully expecting a pretty major recession in the fairly near future. Indeed, it has already started in S.E. Asia and elsewhere. The rising trade deficit of the US says it's probably coming here too, in the not too distant future. Barkley Rosser On Wed, 19 Aug 1998 09:12:38 -0400 Tom Lehman <uswa12 at lorainccc.edu> wrote:
> Dear Doug and the Left Business Observers,
>
> In the early 90's there was a lot of talk about Kondratieff and his long wave
> theories in the financial news and on the old FNN cable station in particular.
> You know how it goes people get on tv and blah,blah,blah. So I decided to do a
> little research and find out what Kondratieff had written from the perspective
> of what was available in English at that time. I figured most of the people on
> tv were probably big bullshitters and were parroting second hand or third hand
> information from dubious sources.
>
> Interestingly enough, only about 50 or 60 pages of Kondratieff have ever been
> translated into English and some of these are synopsis of longer articles by
> Kondratieff or partial translations of longer articles. Mostly from the mid
> 1920's.
>
> There is very little in the way of data tables, in the above, and some of the
> data concerns the history of land rents in France. The math appears to be
> trigonometric functions, possibly hinting at Fourier transforms. Les or
> Enrique, please note, this would be up your alley. This is speculation on my
> part and not to be taken too seriously.
>
> The writings of Kondratieff that I gathered are from established American
> economic journals and could be retrieved.
>
> From other sources. I have read that Kondratieff was able to make enemies of
> both Trotsky and Stalin; I find this very funny. The guy must of had somthing
> on the ball.
>
> Sincerely,
> Tom
>
>
>
> James Devine wrote:
>
> > At 01:37 PM 8/18/98 -0400, Carl Remick wrote:
> > >Re Mark Jones': "K-Wave theory assumes that time's arrow does not apply
> > >to capitalism and things go on for ever, like the mock-waves in a
> > >provincial rep production of Madame Butterfly. But capitalism
> > >had a beginning and it will have an end."
> > >
> > >As I recall, Nikolai Kondratrieff got sent to Siberia for the heresy of
> > >saying these waves were recurrent, rather than approaching a climax.
> > >Never been able to understand the animus economists in general show
> > >toward the K-wave (e.g., Alan Blinder: "K-wave theory smacks of
> > >economic determinism and borders on mysticism."). Certainly seems to be
> > >enough evidence of the toll taken by generational forgetfulness to
> > >support the K-wave as a rough rule of thumb.
> >
> > One thing is that the best evidence for the existence of K-waves concerns
> > prices, not output or employment. Another is that the posited mechanism for
> > causing repetitive waves is theoreticaly weak. Yet another is that the
> > different theorists posit different dates for the phases of the waves (so
> > that some see a K-wave recovery at the same time that others see a
> > collapse). There are also significant differences among the K-waves. And
> > there are alternative explanations....
> >
> > K-waves are more of a matter of faith (or if you will, an assumption) than
> > they are a serious theory.
> >
> > Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu &
> > http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html
>
>
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu