E25 - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution

• Demographic Origins of the Decline in Labor’s Share

  Staff Working Paper 2023-20 Andrew Glover, Jacob Short

  Declining labour market dynamism of workers results in an increasing wedge between their earnings and their marginal product as they age. This wedge and the demographic shift in the earnings shares of older workers can account for 59% of the decline in labor’s share of earnings in the United States.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): D, D3, D33, E, E2, E25, J, J1, J3, J6, J62

• Can Capital Deepening Explain the Global Decline in Labor’s Share?

  Staff Working Paper 2019-3 Andrew Glover, Jacob Short

  We estimate an aggregate elasticity of substitution between capital and labor near or below one, which implies that capital deepening cannot explain the global decline in labor's share. Our methodology derives from transition paths in the neo-classical growth model.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, International topics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E1, E13, E2, E22, E25, J, J3

• Labour Share Fluctuations in Emerging Markets: The Role of the Cost of Borrowing

  Staff Working Paper 2014-47 Serdar Kabaca

  This paper contributes to the literature by documenting labour income share fluctuations in emerging-market economies and proposing an explanation for them. Time-series data indicate that emerging markets differ from developed markets in terms of changes in the labour share over the business cycle.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Development economics, Interest rates, International topics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E25, E4, E44, F, F4, F41

• Labour Shares and the Role of Capital and Labour Market Imperfections

  Staff Discussion Paper 2009-2 Lena Suchanek

  In continental Europe, labour shares in national income have exhibited considerable variation since 1970. Empirical and theoretical research suggests that the evolution of labour markets and labour market imperfections can, in part, explain this phenomenon.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial institutions, Labour markets JEL Code(s): C, C7, C78, E, E2, E25, J, J6, J64

• What Accounts for the U.S.-Canada Education-Premium Difference?

  Staff Working Paper 2009-4 Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Alexander Ueberfeldt

  This paper analyzes the differences in wage ratios of university graduates to less than university graduates, the education premium, in Canada and the United States from 1980 to 2000. Both countries experienced a similar increase in the fraction of university graduates and a similar increase in skill biased technological change based on capital-embodied technological progress, but only the United States had a large increase in the education premium.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Labour markets, Productivity JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E25, J, J2, J24, J3, J31