IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uta/papers/2023_07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor share decline across US manufacturing sub-sectors: 1979-2019

Author

Listed:
  • Swayamsiddha Sarangi

Abstract

This paper studies the sub-sectoral contributions to aggregate manufacturing labor share decline in the US between 1979 and 2019. Using the Log Mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition, the decline in the manufacturing sector’s labor share is decomposed into contributions from real wage growth, labor productivity growth, changes in employment shares, and relative prices arising from the constituent subsectors across three business cycles. The primary findings of the paper suggest that the downward decoupling of real wages from labor productivity is the primary contributor to the labor share decline in manufacturing. Moreover, low labor share sub-sectors (especially Chemical products, Food and Beverage and Tobacco products, and Petroleum and Coal products) have experienced an increase in their employment shares, contributing negatively to aggregate manufacturing labor share. Despite some similarities between manufacturing sub-sectors, this paper emphasizes the heterogeneity across sub-sectors to understand the possible mechanisms behind the decline of labor share.

Suggested Citation

  • Swayamsiddha Sarangi, 2023. "Labor share decline across US manufacturing sub-sectors: 1979-2019," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2023_07, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uta:papers:2023_07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.utah.edu/research/publications/2023-07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Engelbert Stockhammer, 2009. "Determinants of functional income distribution in OECD countries," IMK Studies 05-2009, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    2. 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.
    3. William Milberg & Deborah Winkler, 2010. "Financialisation and the dynamics of offshoring in the USA," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 34(2), pages 275-293, March.
    4. 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.
    5. Brent Neiman, 2014. "The Global Decline of the Labor Share," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 61-103.
    6. Robert Z. Lawrence, 2015. "Recent Declines in Labor's Share in US Income: A Preliminary Neoclassical Account," NBER Working Papers 21296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Ivan Mendieta‐Muñoz & Codrina Rada & Rudi von Arnim, 2021. "The Decline of the US Labor Share Across Sectors," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(3), pages 732-758, September.
    8. Anna Stansbury & Lawrence H. Summers, 2020. "The Declining Worker Power Hypothesis: An Explanation for the Recent Evolution of the American Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(1 (Spring), pages 1-96.
    9. Ezra Oberfield & Devesh Raval, 2021. "Micro Data and Macro Technology," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(2), pages 703-732, March.
    10. Choi, Ki-Hong & Ang, B.W., 2012. "Attribution of changes in Divisia real energy intensity index — An extension to index decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 171-176.
    11. Michael Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Ayseful Sahin, 2013. "The Decline of the U.S. Labor Share," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(2 (Fall)), pages 1-63.
    12. W. Diewert & Alice Nakamura, 2003. "Index Number Concepts, Measures and Decompositions of Productivity Growth," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 127-159, April.
    13. Matthias Kehrig & Nicolas Vincent, 2021. "The Micro-Level Anatomy of the Labor Share Decline," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(2), pages 1031-1087.
    14. Agustin Velasquez, 2023. "Production Technology, Market Power, and the Decline of the Labor Share," IMF Working Papers 2023/032, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Jurgen Essletzbichler & David Rigby, 2005. "Technological evolution as creative destruction of process heterogeneity: evidence from US plant-level data," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 25-45.
    16. Jianxi Luo, 2013. "Which Industries To Bail Out First In Economic Recession? Ranking Us Industrial Sectors By The Power-Of-Pull," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 157-169, March.
    17. Mai Dao & Ms. Mitali Das & Zsoka Koczan & Weicheng Lian, 2017. "Why Is Labor Receiving a Smaller Share of Global Income? Theory and Empirical Evidence," IMF Working Papers 2017/169, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Cauvel, Michael & Pacitti, Aaron, 2022. "Bargaining power, structural change, and the falling U.S. labor share," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 512-530.
    19. Sen, Alper, 2008. "The US fashion industry: A supply chain review," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 571-593, August.
    20. Drago Bergholt & Francesco Furlanetto & Nicolò Maffei-Faccioli, 2022. "The Decline of the Labor Share: New Empirical Evidence," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 163-198, July.
    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. Guimarães, Luís & Mazeda Gil, Pedro, 2022. "Explaining the Labor Share: Automation Vs Labor Market Institutions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    2. Reshef, Ariell & Santoni, Gianluca, 2023. "Are your labor shares set in Beijing? The view through the lens of global value chains," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    3. Roya Taherifar & Mark J. Holmes & Gazi M. Hassan, 2023. "The drivers of labour share and impact on pay inequality: A firm-level investigation," Working Papers in Economics 23/03, University of Waikato.
    4. 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.
    5. Francesco Bloise & Irene Brunetti & Valeria Cirillo, 2022. "Firm strategies and distributional dynamics: labour share in Italian medium-large firms," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(2), pages 623-655, July.
    6. 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.
    7. Walter Paternesi Meloni & Antonella Stirati, 2023. "The decoupling between labour compensation and productivity in high‐income countries: Why is the nexus broken?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(2), pages 425-463, June.
    8. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/5j3i17uo7399t940lrt6h6n545 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Panon, Ludovic, 2022. "Labor share, foreign demand and superstar exporters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    10. Bom, Pedro R.D. & Erauskin, Iñaki, 2022. "Productive government investment and the labor share," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 347-363.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5j3i17uo7399t940lrt6h6n545 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Xiao, De & Yu, Fan & Guo, Chenhao, 2023. "The impact of China's pilot carbon ETS on the labor income share: Based on an empirical method of combining PSM with staggered DID," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    13. Mertens, Matthias, 2022. "Micro-mechanisms behind declining labor shares: Rising market power and changing modes of production," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5j3i17uo7399t940lrt6h6n545 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/5j3i17uo7399t940lrt6h6n545 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Li, Bing & Liu, Chang & Sun, Stephen Teng, 2021. "Do corporate income tax cuts decrease labor share? Regression discontinuity evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    17. Baris Kaymak & Immo Schott, 2018. "Corporate Tax Cuts and the Decline of the Labor Share," 2018 Meeting Papers 943, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Jan Behringer, 2019. "Factor shares and the rise in corporate net lending," IMK Working Paper 202-2019, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    19. Alvarez-Cuadrado, Francisco & Long, Ngo Van & Poschke, Markus, 2018. "Capital-labor substitution, structural change and the labor income share," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 206-231.
    20. Miyoshi, Koyo, 2024. "The decline in the labor share: Evidence from Japanese manufacturers’ panel data," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    21. Loukas Karabarbounis & Brent Neiman, 2019. "Accounting for Factorless Income," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 167-228.
    22. Walter Paternesi Meloni & Antonella Stirati, 2021. "What has driven the delinking of wages from productivity? A political economy-based investigation for high-income economies," Working Papers PKWP2104, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    23. Emilien Gouin-Bonenfant, 2018. "Productivity Dispersion, Between-firm Competition and the Labor Share," 2018 Meeting Papers 1171, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    24. Si, Xu & Liu, Yulin & Wang, Jun, 2023. "Dialect diversity and labor income share in China," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(4).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    laborshare; manufacturing; subsectors; Divisia decomposition JEL Classification: J30; J31; E24; L6;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • L6 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing

    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:uta:papers:2023_07. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuutus.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.