A critical reading of "The Capital of the 21st Century" from the notion of innovation

Abstract

The paper offers a revision of the work “Capital in the XXI century”, by T. Piketty, taking the notion of innovation as the source of productivity growth (and hence, of capital returns) as a criterion as well as a systemic or circulation analysis approach to the economy. The merits of the work –its long-term scope, the return to the big questions posed by classical economy, the exercise of dialogue with other disciplines, or the collection of statistics– are highlighted. On the other side, however, some theoretical inconsistencies which put into question some conclusions drawn by the author are also remarked.