A note on the organic composition of capital and profit rates

It is widely believed that the rate of profit across industrial sectors, while not in fact uniform as stipulated in the theory of prices of production, is independent of the sectoral organic composition of capital. It follows that the simple labour theory of value must be systematically in error as a predictor of actual sectoral aggregate prices. We offer empirical evidence from the US economy (1987 input-output table) suggesting that this is not so: there is a substantial and statistically significant negative association between organic composition and profit rate across sectors.