There has been much confusion about corporate profits. As a result, there has been lots of sloppy analysis and misinformed discussion of such important issues as the central role of profits in economic growth, the trend of profits, the corporate tax rate, the profit margin, profits' share of national income, and corporate share buybacks.
The confusion has played into the hands of progressives, who claim that the profit motive results in income and wealth inequality. As I will show in this study, their narrative of the relationship between profits and prosperity is wrong and misleadingly pessimistic. Market-driven profit is the source of widespread prosperity, not its nemesis.