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Institute of Economics

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  7. The Metabolism of Capital: A Historical Account and Statistical Analysis of Corporate Profitability in France and Germany

The Metabolism of Capital: A Historical Account and Statistical Analysis of Corporate Profitability in France and Germany

Mishael Milakovic (University of Bamberg) and Angelo Secchi (Sorbonne Paris) have received funding from a joint ANR-DFG grant for their project "The Metabolism of Capital: A Historical Account and Statistical Analysis of Corporate Profitability in France and Germany" (MECAPHIST) that will run until March 2026. Milakovic and Secchi will collaborate with economists and economic historians from the Paris School of Economics and Universitat Jaume I in Spain.

Recent research has revealed that the profit rate of long-lived US corporations is surprisingly the same and has remained stable since 1980, despite considerable idiosyncrasies in corporate characteristics. MECAPHIST seeks to determine whether this stability is a fundamental trait of capitalist economies, rather than a temporary or region-specific occurrence, by compiling and analyzing a new historical dataset from German and French corporate paper sources. MECAPHIST will also investigate how corporate governance impacts the probability of corporate survival. The historical dataset will be made available to the public through open access after project completion.