Accumulation regimes

International audienceThis chapter discusses the way in which the social surplus is distributed and, crucially, used—that is, accumulation regimes. Historical observation shows that accumulation—the process of adding productive capital to the previously invested amount of capital—undergoes long periods of stability, followed by periods of instability and crisis. Thus, especially Régulation theory and the Social Structure of Accumulationapproach set out to study the dynamics of production, consumption and the distribution of income through institutional frameworks specific in time and location and which underpin macroeconomic regularities. In this way, authors demonstrate that the evolutionary nature of the economy implies that economics should not assume a canonical accumulation regime but rather be concerned with a much broader variety of regimes