IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v110y2002i2p458-474.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Getting Income Shares Right

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas Gollin

Abstract

Many widely used economic models implicitly assume that income shares should be identical across time and space. Although time-series data from industrial countries appear consistent with this notion, cross-section data generally appear to contradict the assumption. A commonly used calculation suggests that labor shares of national income vary from about .05 to about .80 in international cross-section data. This paper suggests that the usual approach underestimates labor income in small firms. Several adjustments for calculating labor shares are identified and compared. They all yield labor shares for most countries in the range of .65.80.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas Gollin, 2002. "Getting Income Shares Right," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 458-474, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:110:y:2002:i:2:p:458-474
    DOI: 10.1086/338747
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/338747
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/338747?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alwyn Young, 1995. "The Tyranny of Numbers: Confronting the Statistical Realities of the East Asian Growth Experience," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 641-680.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muhammad Shafiullah & Ravinthirakumaran Navaratnam, 2016. "Do Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Enjoy Export-Led Growth? A Comparison of Two Small South Asian Economies," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 17(1), pages 114-132, March.
    2. Jonathan Temple, 2002. "The Assessment: The New Economy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 18(3), pages 241-264.
    3. Jesper Stage, 2002. "Structural Shifts In Namibian Energy Use: An Input‐Output Approach," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(6), pages 1103-1125, September.
    4. Euler Pereira Gonçalves de Mello & Paulo Brigido Rocha Macedo, 2003. "Total Factor Productivity, Technical Efficiency, Scale Change and Technical Change for 27 Brazilian Industries During the Period 1996-2000," Anais do XXXI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 31st Brazilian Economics Meeting] d35, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    5. Jack Rossbach & Jose Asturias, 2017. "Misallocation in the Presence of Multiple Production Technologies," 2017 Meeting Papers 1094, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Jun, Bogang & Hwang, Won-Sik, 2012. "Financial Hurdles for Human Capital Accumulation: Revisiting the Galor-Zeira Model," MPRA Paper 46317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Murach, Michael & Wagner, Helmut & Kim, Jungsuk & Park, Donghyun, 2022. "Trajectories to high income: Comparing the growth dynamics in China, South Korea, and Japan with cointegrated VAR models," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 492-511.
    8. Olivier Bruno & Cuong Van & Benoît Masquin, 2009. "When does a developing country use new technologies?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(2), pages 275-300, August.
    9. William R Kerr, 2018. "Heterogeneous Technology Diffusion and Ricardian Trade Patterns," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 163-182.
    10. Zhou, Yixiao & Tyers, Rod, 2019. "Automation and inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    11. Rosés, Joan R., 2008. "Proximate causes of economic growth in Spain, 1850-2000," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp08-12, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    12. Ludger Wößmann, 2005. "Educational Production in East Asia: The Impact of Family Background and Schooling Policies on Student Performance," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 6(3), pages 331-353, August.
    13. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    14. Georges Daw, 2022. "Determinants of Wealth Disparities in the EU: A Multi-scale Development Accounting Investigation," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(2), pages 211-254, June.
    15. Måns Söderbom & Francis Teal, 2003. "Openness and human capital as sources of productivity growth: An empirical investigation," CSAE Working Paper Series 2003-06, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    16. Philippe Burger, 2014. "Facing the Conundrum: How Useful Is the “Developmental State” Concept in South Africa?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 82(2), pages 159-180, June.
    17. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.
    18. Mr. Jean-Claude Berthélemy & Mr. Ludvig Söderling, 2002. "Will there Be New Emerging-Market Economies in Africa b+L2280y the Year 2020?," IMF Working Papers 2002/131, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Warner, Andrew M., 1996. "Achieving Rapid Growth in the Transition Economies of Central Europe," Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) Papers 294091, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government.
    20. Terence Huw Edwards, 2007. "Returns to Education and the Mankiw-Romer-Weil result," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 15(24), pages 1-8.

    More about this item

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Getting Income Shares Right (JPE 2002) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:110:y:2002:i:2:p:458-474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.