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Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share
Open accessAbstract
The recent fall of labor's share of GDP in numerous countries is well-documented, but its causes are poorly understood. We sketch a “superstar firm” model where industries are increasingly characterized by “winner take most” competition, leading a small number of highly profitable (and low labor share) firms to command growing market share. Building on Autor et al. (2017), we evaluate and confirm two core claims of the superstar firm hypothesis: the concentration of sales among firms within industries has risen across much of the private sector; and industries with larger increases in concentration exhibit a larger decline in labor's share.
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“The empirical literature also tends to find higher markups for larger, more productive firms.12”
From The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms* (2020) · cites this paper as [12]
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Citations
Cites
Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share: Accumulation or Scarcity?
Rognlie, M. (2016) · Brookings Papers on Economic Activity · doi:10.1353/eca.2016.0002 · Cited by 390
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- 10.1093/qje/qjt032 · DOI · Paper page
- Rognlie Matthew, 2015, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1
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Metadata
- Authors
- Autor, D., Dorn, D., Katz, L. F., Patterson, C., & Reenen, J. V.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- MIT Department of Economics and Sloan School, Cambridge, MA 02142 (e-mail: )
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2017-05-01
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 180-185
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2585432763
- Cited by
- 530
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 52 · 2021: 92 · 2020: 86 · 2019: 69 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 19
- FWCI
- 102.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Theses Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/M010341/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economic Theory and Policy
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Merger and Competition Analysis
- Keywords
- labor share of GDP, superstar firms, winner-take-all competition, market concentration, declining labor share
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