Firm leverage and labour share: evidence from China

Wenlong Liu, Zhen Yang and Jiapeng An

Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 2023, vol. 36, issue 3, 2183518

Abstract: We examine the relationship between firm leverage and firm-level labour shares by using the panel threshold effect model. Based on the sample of Chinese firms listed in the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SHSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) from 2010 to 2019, we find that leverage has a significant threshold effect on the labour share of firms, and on average, firm leverage is positively associated with the labour share when the debt per labour is less than 640,000 CNY (approximate 89,600 USD). When the firm leverage exceeds the threshold, firm leverage is negatively associated with labour share. We also find significant heterogeneity over state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), capital-intensive firms and labour-intensive firms, firms with different levels of financial constraints and firms in different life cycles. We contribute to prior literature by revealing the nonlinear association between leverage and firm-level labour share. Therefore, various policies (e.g. made credit policy to restrict lending to firms without sustainable profitability) must be implemented to increase the labour share of enterprises as well as achieve the higher-quality development of the economy in the long term.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1331677X.2023.2183518 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:reroxx:v:36:y:2023:i:3:p:2183518

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rero20

DOI: 10.1080/1331677X.2023.2183518

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja is currently edited by Marinko Skare

More articles in Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().