IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedmwp/97393.html

Perspectives on the Labor Share

Author

Listed:
  • Loukas Karabarbounis

Abstract

As of 2022, the share of U.S. income accruing to labor is at its lowest level since the Great Depression. Updating previous studies with more recent observations, I document the continuing decline of the labor share for the United States, other countries, and various industries. I discuss how changes in technology and product, labor, and capital markets affect the trend of the labor share. I also examine its relationship with other macroeconomic trends, such as rising markups, higher concentration of economic activity, and globalization. I conclude by offering some perspectives on the economic and policy implications of the labor share decline.

Suggested Citation

  • Loukas Karabarbounis, 2023. "Perspectives on the Labor Share," Working Papers 800, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmwp:97393
    DOI: 10.21034/wp.800
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/wp/wp800.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.21034/wp.800?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew B. Abel & N. Gregory Mankiw & Lawrence H. Summers & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1989. "Assessing Dynamic Efficiency: Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(1), pages 1-19.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Jiyoon Oh, 2025. "The Micro-Level Anatomy of Korea’s Rising Labor Share," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 41, pages 175-210.
    3. Simcha Barkai & Surech Nallareddy & Maria Ogneva, 2025. "Capitalization of Intellectual Property Products Does Not Explain the Decline in the Labor Share," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 56, April.
    4. Hennessy, David A., 2025. "Information as a catalyst for industrialization," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    5. Schiozer, Nikolas & Lima, Gilberto Tadeu & Alexandre, Michel, 2026. "Heterogeneity in pricing behavior in hybrid DSGE-ABM macrodynamics," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    6. Garibaldi, Pietro & Turri, Enrico D., 2024. "Monopsony in Growth Theory," IZA Discussion Papers 17392, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Cheng, Rui & Li, Jing & Wu, Ting, 2024. "Competition policy and labor income share: Evidence from the antitrust policy in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 966-977.
    8. Masayuki MORIKAWA, 2025. "Are Productivity and Wages Decoupling in Japan? Divergence between macro and micro relationships," Discussion papers 25106, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    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. Jaume Ventura & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2015. "Debt into growth: How sovereign debt accelerated the first Industrial Revolution," Economics Working Papers 1483, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    2. Pica Giovanni, 2010. "Capital Markets Integration and Labor Market Institutions," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-57, March.
    3. Pierre ALDAMA & Jérôme Creel, 2017. "Fiscal policy in the US : Ricardian after all ?," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2017-23, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    4. Raurich, Xavier & Seegmuller, Thomas, 2019. "On the interplay between speculative bubbles and productive investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 400-420.
    5. Larch, Martin, 1993. "Dynamically Inefficient Equilibria in the Auerbach-Kotlikoff Model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 159-172.
    6. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    7. Stefan Homburg, 2014. "Overaccumulation, Public Debt and the Importance of Land," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 15(4), pages 411-435, November.
    8. Vito Tanzi & Howell H. Zee, 1997. "Fiscal Policy and Long-Run Growth," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(2), pages 179-209, June.
    9. Julia, Knolle, 2014. "An Empirical Comparison of Interest and Growth Rates," MPRA Paper 59520, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Jean-Paul Fitoussi, 1996. "Anatomie de la croissance molle," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 59(1), pages 213-244.
    11. Patrizio Pagano & Massimo Sbracia, 2014. "The secular stagnation hypothesis: a review of the debate and some insights," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 231, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Martin Larch & João Nogueira Martins, 2007. "Fiscal indicators - Proceedings of the the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs Workshop held on 22 September 2006 in Brussels," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 297, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    13. Rishabh Kumar, 2015. "Wealth accumulation and aggregate demand stagnation in a two class economy with applications to the United States," Working Papers 1526, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    14. Schoonbroodt, Alice & Tertilt, Michèle, 2014. "Property rights and efficiency in OLG models with endogenous fertility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 551-582.
    15. Hayo, Bernd & Ono, Hiroyuki, 2010. "Comparing public attitudes toward providing for the livelihood of the elderly in two aging societies: Germany and Japan," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 72-80, January.
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4718gto3ar8s3r4k307p0bvbcs is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Tim Besley, 2001. "From micro to macro: public policies and aggregate economic performance," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 357-374, September.
    18. Roger E. A. Farmer, 2018. "Pricing Assets in a Perpetual Youth Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 106-124, October.
    19. Aoki, Kosuke & Nakajima, Tomoyuki & Nikolov, Kalin, 2014. "Safe asset shortages and asset price bubbles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 164-174.
    20. Fakin, B., 1998. "A note on assessing dynamic efficiency," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 263-268, June.
    21. Christian Hellwig, 2003. "Bubbles and Self-enforcing Debt (October 2006, with Guido Lorenzoni)," UCLA Economics Online Papers 229, UCLA Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - 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:fip:fedmwp:97393. 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: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.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.