Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Globalisation, concentration and footloose firms: in search of the main cause of the declining labour share

Contents:

Author Info

  • Hutchinson, John
  • Persyn, Damiaan

Abstract

Over the last two decades the share of national income which accrues to labour has followed a marked downward trend across a host of industrialised countries. This paper attempts to assess the importance of several potential causes of this phenomenon. We investigate compositional effects, the effect of declining trade costs, changes in the market structure (concentration) and the effect of low-wage competition between countries. Overall, the findings suggest that lower trade costs and factors related to economic integration such as industry concentration, the market power of firms and increased international low-wage competition indeed affect the labour share. However, their effect has been quite limited when compared to changes in the sectoral composition, the effects of technological change, cyclical factors and changes in the prices of intermediary goods.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/217887/1/LICOSDP229-2009.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in its series Open Access publications from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven with number urn:hdl:123456789/217887.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ner:leuven:urn:hdl:123456789/217887

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.kuleuven.be

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Berman, E. & Bound, J. & Machin, S., 1997. "Implications of Skill-Biased Technological Change: International Evidence," Papers 25, Centre for Economic Performance & Institute of Economics.
  2. Per Krusell & Lee E. Ohanian & Jose-Victor Rios-Rull & Giovanni L. Violante, 1997. "Capital-skill complementarity and inequality: a macroeconomic analysis," Staff Report 239, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  3. 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.
  4. Huizinga, Harry & Laeven, Luc, 2008. "International profit shifting within multinationals: A multi-country perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1164-1182, June.
  5. Lu�s M B Cabral & Jos� Mata, 2003. "On the Evolution of the Firm Size Distribution: Facts and Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1075-1090, September.
  6. John W. Budd & Jozef Konings & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2005. "Wages and International Rent Sharing in Multinational Firms," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 73-84, February.
  7. Mezzetti, C. & Dinopoulos, E., 1989. "Domestic Unionization And Import Competition," Papers 337, California Davis - Institute of Governmental Affairs.
  8. Gianmarco Ottaviano & Takatoshi Tabuchi & Jacques-FranÁois Thisse, 2002. "Agglomeration and Trade Revisited," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(2), pages 409-436, May.
  9. Robert E. Hall, 1988. "The Relation Between Price and Marginal Cost in U.S. Industry," NBER Working Papers 1785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Melitz, Marc J, 2002. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 3381, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  11. Mayer, Thierry & Paillacar, Rodrigo & Zignago, Soledad, 2008. "TradeProd. The CEPII Trade, Production and Bilateral Protection Database: Explanatory Notes," MPRA Paper 26477, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  12. Oliver J. Blanchard, 1997. "The Medium Run," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(2), pages 89-158.
  13. Arpaia, Alfonso & Pérez, Esther & Pichelmann, Karl, 2009. "Understanding labour income share dynamics in Europe," MPRA Paper 15649, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  14. Marc J. Melitz & Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano, 2005. "Market Size, Trade, and Productivity," NBER Working Papers 11393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. Budd, John W & Konings, Jozef & Slaughter, Matthew, 2002. "International Rent Sharing in Multinational Firms," CEPR Discussion Papers 3326, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  16. Marcel P. Timmer & Mary O’Mahony & Bart van Ark, 2007. "EU KLEMS Growth and Productivity Accounts: An Overview," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 14, pages 71-85, Spring.
  17. repec:bla:restud:v:75:y:2008:i:1:p:295-316 is not listed on IDEAS
  18. Lyons, Bruce & Matraves, Catherine & Moffatt, Peter, 2001. "Industrial Concentration and Market Integration in the European Union," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 68(269), pages 1-26, February.
  19. Huizinga, Harry & Laeven, Luc, 2007. "International Profit Shifting within European Multinationals," CEPR Discussion Papers 6048, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  20. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Labor- And Capital-Augmenting Technical Change," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 1-37, 03.
  21. Alain Serres & Stefano Scarpetta & Christine Maisonneuve, 2001. "Falling Wage Shares in Europe and the United States: How Important is Aggregation Bias?," Empirica, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 375-401, December.
  22. Baltagi, Badi H. & Wu, Ping X., 1999. "Unequally Spaced Panel Data Regressions With Ar(1) Disturbances," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(06), pages 814-823, December.
  23. Florence Jaumotte & Irina Tytell, 2007. "How has the Globalization of Labor Affected the Labor Income Share in Advanced Countries?," IMF Working Papers 07/298, International Monetary Fund.
  24. Ottaviano, Gianmarco, 2002. "Agglomeration and Trade Revisited," Open Access publications from Université catholique de Louvain info:hdl:2078.1/23326, Université catholique de Louvain.
  25. Klapper, Leora & Laeven, Luc & Rajan, Raghuram, 2006. "Entry regulation as a barrier to entrepreneurship," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 591-629, December.
  26. Carlo Altomonte, 2007. "Regional Economic Integration and the Location of Multinational Firms," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer, vol. 143(2), pages 277-305, July.
  27. Philip Vermeulen, 2007. "Can adjustment costs explain the variability and counter-cyclicality of the labour share at the firm and aggregate level?," Working Paper Series 772, European Central Bank.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ner:leuven:urn:hdl:123456789/217887

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Carl Demeyere).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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