Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 10, 2021

The Correlation of the Virtual Economy and the Real Economy: A Comparative Study of the Major Capitalist Countries

(Abstract)

Liu Xiaoxin and Tian Heng

The fact that the virtual economy operates independently of the real economy has led to frequent financial crises in today’s global economy. Marx’s theory of virtual capital reveals the economic laws of capitalism behind this phenomenon. A “virtual economy/real economy” input-output model was constructed to measure the forward and backward correlation between the virtual and the real economy and to analyze the impact of the virtual economy’s self-circulation on the composition of GDP. The overall empirical analysis shows that the scale of the virtual economy’s self-circulation in major capitalist countries was still expanding in 2001-2016; this requires us to remain vigilant against potential international financial risks.