The Unassuming Economist

A new paper “revisits the old standing issue of the stability of labour shares. […] Empirical results indicate diverse patterns in labour share movements, the most preponderant being a downward deterministic trend with break(s). Upward trends are observed in a limited set of economies (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands).  Overall, the stability of the labour share hypothesis appears to find only weak support. Exploratory analysis demonstrates that most of the structural breaks are economically significant and relate to the recent economic and political history of individual economies. The nature of labour share dynamics, as a country-specific and (to a large extent) policy and political phenomenon, is emphasized.”