Revisiting the Global Decline of the (Non-housing) Labor Share

Abstract

We show that cross-country comparisons of corporate labor shares are affected by differences in the delineation of corporate sectors. While the United States excludes all self-employed and most dwellings from the corporate sector, other countries include large amounts of both—biasing labor shares downward. We propose two methods to control for these differences and obtain “harmonized ” non-housing labor share series. Contrary to common wisdom, the harmonized series remain stable or increase in all major advanced economies except the United States and Canada. These new facts cast doubts on most technological explanations for the decline of the labor share. (JEL E25, E26, J23, O11, O15, P23, P36)