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Is the great decoupling real?

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  • Marinko Škare
  • Damian Škare

Abstract

The great decoupling is real. Productivity and employment/wages link changed after 1980 in many countries, not just the U.S. This study investigates the productivity and employment/wages link (1950–2014) looking for empirical proof of the “great decoupling” put forward by Brynjolfsson and Mcafee (2013). The results should stimulate policymakers to openly question why real wages and productivity don’t line up with the theory. We use the Hodrick and Prescott (1997) filter to isolate trends in real wages, labor share in GDP, and labor productivity and rolling correlation to explore if the great decoupling is real. We have found that the great decoupling i.e. the divergence between real wages/employment and productivity is present in all countries (10 in the sample). The dynamics of the great decoupling are however different between the countries although year 1980 seems to be a dominant breaking point for the start of the phenomena. This paper provides multicounty empirical proof of the presence of the great decoupling phenomena and explores its dynamics over 1950–2014. Policy makers as well as firms and unions should take the existence of this phenomena seriously since it can have significant consequences on economic growth and labor markets’ functioning.

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  • Marinko Škare & Damian Škare, 2017. "Is the great decoupling real?," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 451-467, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jbemgt:v:18:y:2017:i:3:p:451-467
    DOI: 10.3846/16111699.2017.1323793
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    Cited by:

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    2. Daniel Ossa, 2024. "Gender Wage Gap, Wage-Productivity Decoupling, and the Rate of Profit," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 56(1), pages 51-69, March.
    3. González-Rozada, Martín & Ruffo, Hernán, 2024. "Do trade agreements contribute to the decline in labor share? Evidence from Latin American countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    4. 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.
    5. 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).

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