IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rim/rimwps/21-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor share and income distribution: Size of the cake or the cake portion?

Author

Listed:
  • Anelí Bongers

    (Department of Economics, University of Málaga, Spain)

  • Benedetto Molinari

    (Department of Economics, University of Málaga, Spain; Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis)

  • José L. Torres

    (Department of Economics, University of Málaga, Spain)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic and distributional effects of declining labor share as observed during the last decades. We use a neoclassical general equilibrium model with two types of households, workers and capitalists, endowed with a CES production function, in which the distributional parameter matches labor share. This implies the existence of a technological nexus between the observed labor share and the distributional parameter of the CES function. We explore that technological nexus and show that both capitalists' and workers' income increase as labor income declines depending on the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. The effect of labor share changes on income distribution does not depend on the elasticity of substitution, and hence, relative income and relative consumption decrease for workers, increasing inequality. When capital depreciation rate is taken into account, the decline in labor share has a limited impact on the functional distribution of net income.

Suggested Citation

  • Anelí Bongers & Benedetto Molinari & José L. Torres, 2021. "Labor share and income distribution: Size of the cake or the cake portion?," Working Paper series 21-06, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:rim:rimwps:21-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://rcea.org/RePEc/pdf/wp21-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F. Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2017. "Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 180-185, May.
    2. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226304557 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Georg Graetz & Guy Michaels, 2018. "Robots at Work," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(5), pages 753-768, December.
    4. Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1255-1310.
    5. Rudy Fichtenbaum, 2011. "Do Unions Affect Labor's Share of Income: Evidence Using Panel Data," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 784-810, July.
    6. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2020. "The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms [“Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 645-709.
    7. Ricardo, David, 1821. "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, edition 3, number ricardo1821.
    8. Chirinko, Robert S., 2008. "[sigma]: The long and short of it," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 671-686, June.
    9. Olivier de La Grandville & Rainer Klump, 2000. "Economic Growth and the Elasticity of Substitution: Two Theorems and Some Suggestions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 282-291, March.
    10. Bentolila Samuel & Saint-Paul Gilles, 2003. "Explaining Movements in the Labor Share," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-33, October.
    11. Loukas Karabarbounis & Brent Neiman & Jonathan Adams, 2014. "Labor Shares and Income Inequality," 2014 Meeting Papers 539, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Bridgman, Benjamin, 2018. "Is Labor'S Loss Capital'S Gain? Gross Versus Net Labor Shares," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(8), pages 2070-2087, December.
    13. Rainer Klump & Peter McAdam & Alpo Willman, 2012. "The Normalized Ces Production Function: Theory And Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 769-799, December.
    14. Edward C. Budd, 1960. "Factor Shares, 1850-1910," NBER Chapters, in: Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, pages 365-406, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Douglas Gollin, 2002. "Getting Income Shares Right," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 458-474, April.
    16. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01109372 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Alexei Izyumov & John Vahaly, 2015. "Income Shares Revisited," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(1), pages 179-188, March.
    18. The Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, 1960. "Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number unkn60-1.
    19. Robert J. Gordon, 1990. "The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord90-1.
    20. Salverda, Wiemer & Nolan, Brian & Smeeding, Timothy M. (ed.), 2011. "The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199606061.
    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. Alessandro Bellocchi & Giovanni Marin & Giuseppe Travaglini, 2021. "The Great Fall of Labor Share:Micro Determinants for EU Countries Over 2011-2019," Working Papers 2102, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Department of Economics, Society & Politics - Scientific Committee - L. Stefanini & G. Travaglini, revised 2021.
    2. Bellocchi, Alessandro & Travaglini, Giuseppe, 2023. "Can variable elasticity of substitution explain changes in labor shares?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Aneli Bongers, 2021. "Economic growth and the functional distribution of income: A labor share Kuznets curve," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(1), pages 192-200.
    4. Kyoji Fukao & Cristiano Perugini, 2021. "The Long‐Run Dynamics of the Labor Share in Japan," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(2), pages 445-480, June.
    5. Marta Guerriero, 2019. "The Labor Share of Income Around the World: Evidence from a Panel Dataset," ADB Institute Series on Development Economics, in: Gary Fields & Saumik Paul (ed.), Labor Income Share in Asia, chapter 0, pages 39-79, Springer.
    6. Kraft, Kornelius & Lammers, Alexander, 2021. "Bargaining Power and the Labor Share - a Structural Break Approach," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242342, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Song, Eunbi, 2021. "What drives labor share change? Evidence from Korean industries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 370-385.
    8. Dawson, John W. & Sturgill, Brad, 2022. "Market Institutions and Factor Shares Across Countries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 266-289.
    9. Anna M. Stansbury & Lawrence H. Summers, 2017. "Productivity and Pay: Is the link broken?," NBER Working Papers 24165, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Robert Z. Lawrence, 2015. "Recent Declines in Labor's Share in US Income: A Preliminary Neoclassical Account," Working Paper Series WP15-10, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    11. Xu, Xiang & Li, David Daokui & Zhao, Mofei, 2018. "“Made in China” matters: Integration of the global labor market and the global labor share decline," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 16-29.
    12. Nikolaos Charalampidis, 2020. "The U.S. Labor Income Share And Automation Shocks," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(1), pages 294-318, January.
    13. Musa Orak, 2017. "Capital-Task Complementarity and the Decline of the U.S. Labor Share of Income," International Finance Discussion Papers 1200, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Luis Díez Catalán, 2018. "The labor share in the service economy," Working Papers 18/09, BBVA Bank, Economic Research Department.
    15. Antràs Pol, 2004. "Is the U.S. Aggregate Production Function Cobb-Douglas? New Estimates of the Elasticity of Substitution," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-36, April.
    16. Hergovich, Philipp & Merz, Monika, 2018. "The Price of Capital, Factor Substitutability, and Corporate Profits," IZA Discussion Papers 11791, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Andrew Glover & Jacob Short, 2020. "Can Capital Deepening Explain the Global Decline in Labor's Share?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 35-53, January.
    18. repec:ecb:ecbwps:20141800 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Marta Guerriero, 2019. "Democracy and the Labor Share of Income: A Cross-Country Analysis," ADB Institute Series on Development Economics, in: Gary Fields & Saumik Paul (ed.), Labor Income Share in Asia, chapter 0, pages 151-176, Springer.
    20. Paul, Saumik & Thomas, Liam, 2020. "The Agricultural Productivity Gap and Self-Employment Bias in the Labor Income Share," IZA Discussion Papers 13415, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Miguel A. Leon-Ledesma & Mathan Satchi, 2015. "Appropriate Technology and the Labour Share," Studies in Economics 1505, School of Economics, University of Kent, revised Nov 2016.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Functional distribution of income; Labor share; Workers; Capitalists;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:rim:rimwps:21-06. 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: Marco Savioli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rcfeait.html .

    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.