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The productivity slowdown and the declining labor share: a neoclassical exploration

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  • Grossman, Gene M.
  • Helpman, Elhanan
  • Oberfield, Ezra
  • Sampson, Thomas

Abstract

We explore the possibility that a global productivity slowdown is responsible for the widespread decline in the labor share of national income. In a neoclassical growth model with endogenous human capital accumulation a la Ben Porath (1967) and capital-skill complementarity a la Grossman et al. (2017), the steady-state labor share is positively correlated with the rates of capital-augmenting and labor-augmenting technological progress. We calibrate the key parameters describing the balanced growth path to U.S. data for the early post-war period and find that a one percentage point slowdown in the growth rate of per capita income can account for between one half and all of the observed decline in the US labor share

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  • Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan & Oberfield, Ezra & Sampson, Thomas, 2017. "The productivity slowdown and the declining labor share: a neoclassical exploration," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86597, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:86597
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    neoclassical growth; balanced growth; technological progress; capital-skill complementarity; labor share; capital share;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

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