Revisiting the Global Decline of the (Non-Housing) Labor Share

German Gutierrez () and Sophie Piton

No 1913, Discussion Papers from Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM)

Abstract: We show that cross-country comparisons of corporate labor shares are affected by differences in the delineation of corporate sectors. While the US excludes all self-employed and most dwellings from the corporate sector, other countries include large amounts of both - biasing labor shares downwards. We propose two methods to control for these differences and obtain 'harmonized' nonhousing labor share series. Contrary to common wisdom, the harmonized series remain stable across all major economies except the US, where the labor share still declines, primarily due to manufacturing. These new facts cast doubts on most technological explanations for the labor share decline.

Keywords: Labour share; Residential real estate; Self-employment; National accounts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E22 E25 L85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Revisiting the Global Decline of the (Non-housing) Labor Share (2020)
Working Paper: Revisiting the global decline of the (non-housing) labor share (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cfm:wpaper:1913

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