114:. Due to the necessity of aggregating wage data from different sources, many early studies on the growth or decline of the wage share, including Bowley's and Kalecki's research in the 1930s, were fraught with measurement and comparability issues. As national accounting in Great Britain and the United States improved, studies such as
169:
Only in the early 2000s did academic interest in Bowley's law begin to resurface. Since then a substantial body of economic research has cast strong doubts on whether Bowley's law holds in post-1960 data. More specifically, recent research strongly suggests that in most major economies, including the
90:) evidence for his speculation in a comparison between the UK's wage shares in 1911 and 1924, Bowley became the first to clearly assert the constancy of the wage share in his 1937 book
134:(1959). Even though academic interest in Bowley's law waned from the 1960s on, its impact on economic theory was profound. Through its influence on the macroeconomic research of
122:(1954) found wage shares to be constant. As a consequence, the constancy of the wage share was widely accepted as stylized fact among economists, e.g. becoming part of
150:
who developed macroeconomic theories able to account for the existence of a constant wage share. Analogously, Bowley's law is reflected in the development of
52:. Research conducted near the start of the 21st century, however, found wage share to have declined since the 1980s in most major economies.
796:
110:
Since its beginnings in the 1920s, empirical research on the distribution of factor shares has been intimately tied to the development of
346:
159:
801:
424:
Kuznets, S. (1959). "Quantitative
Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations: IV. Distribution of National Income by Factor Shares".
166:, which neoclassical macroeconomics seek to explain, implies that it considerably shaped the development of modern economic theory.
309:
307:
Phelps Brown, E. H.; Weber, B. (1953). "Accumulation, Productivity, and
Distribution in the British Economy, 1870–1938".
533:
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Wages in the United
Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century: Notes for the Use of Students of Social and Economic Questions
39:
469:
143:
674:
699:
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151:
86:. Having already speculated in 1920 that the wage share might be constant and having found (together with
35:
126:
on modern economic growth. This consensus met strong empirical challenges in the late 1950s, e.g. from
496:
Krämer, H. M. (2011). "Bowley's Law: The
Diffusion of an Empirical Supposition into Economic Theory".
272:
Krämer, H. M. (2011). "Bowley's Law: The
Diffusion of an Empirical Supposition into Economic Theory".
187:
Krämer, H. M. (2011). "Bowley's Law: The
Diffusion of an Empirical Supposition into Economic Theory".
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for their work (usually in the form of wages), remains constant over time. It is named after the
344:
Johnson, D. G. (1954). "The
Functional Distribution of Income in the United States, 1850–1952".
655:
163:
135:
123:
659:
237:
Carter, S. (2007). "Real wage productivity elasticity across advanced economies, 1963–1996".
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who perceived the factor shares of land, capital, and labor to be inherently flexible.
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127:
99:
79:
75:
49:
27:
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Solow, R. M. (1958). "A Skeptical Note on the
Constancy of Relative Factor Shares".
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U.S., the wage share has substantially and significantly declined since the 1980s.
131:
87:
587:
Bentolila, S.; Saint-Paul, G. (2003). "Explaining
Movements in the Labor Share".
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in the 1930s. Perhaps most importantly, the inclusion of Bowley's law as one of
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650:
633:
155:
31:
722:
Karabournis, L.; Neiman, B. (2014). "The Global
Decline of the Labor Share".
82:, who pioneered the collection and statistical analysis of wage data in the
46:
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of a constant wage share. Thereby, Samuelson meant to honor the economist
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634:"Effects of Globalization on Labor's Share in National Income"
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in 1964 in the sixth American edition of his classic textbook
94:. This finding was remarkably at odds with the teachings of
498:
Cahiers d'Économie Politique/Papers in Political Economy
274:
Cahiers d'Économie Politique/Papers in Political Economy
189:
Cahiers d'Économie Politique/Papers in Political Economy
775:
531:Gollin, D. (2002). "Getting Income Shares Right".
778:Wages and Income in the United Kingdom Since 1860
700:20.500.11820/33fb6813-7bf1-4c77-a9c9-885a07b7fae4
92:Wages and Income in the United Kingdom since 1860
34:of a country, i.e., the share of a country's
8:
769:. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
572:. In Durlauf, S. B.; Blume, L. E. (eds.).
735:
698:
649:
608:
400:
782:. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
574:The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
426:Economic Development and Cultural Change
179:
679:Brookings Papers on Economic Activity
675:"The Decline of the U.S. Labor Share"
673:Elsby, M. W. L.; et al. (2013).
226:. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 736.
7:
239:Journal of Post Keynesian Economics
224:Economics: An Introductory Textbook
30:of economics which states that the
347:Review of Economics and Statistics
14:
589:Contributions to Macroeconomics
724:Quarterly Journal of Economics
310:Quarterly Journal of Economics
38:that is given to employees as
24:law of the constant wage share
1:
534:Journal of Political Economy
383:"A Model of Economic Growth"
797:Eponymous laws of economics
818:
570:"Labour's share of income"
251:10.2753/PKE0160-3477290403
16:Stylized fact of economics
651:10.5089/9781451865547.001
144:Post-Keynesian economists
802:1937 in economic history
470:American Economic Review
774:Bowley, A. L. (1937).
763:Bowley, A. L. (1900).
601:10.2202/1534-6005.1103
222:Samuelson, P. (1964).
691:10.1353/eca.2013.0016
632:Guscina, A. (2006).
510:10.3917/cep.061.0019
388:The Economic Journal
286:10.3917/cep.061.0019
201:10.3917/cep.061.0019
118:and Weber (1953) or
96:classical economists
22:, also known as the
568:Gollin, D. (2008).
432:(3 Part 2): 1–100.
381:Kaldor, N. (1957).
112:national accounting
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40:compensation
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20:Bowley's law
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685:(2): 1–63.
595:(1): 1–31.
791:Categories
644:(294): 1.
174:References
156:John Hicks
130:(1959) or
32:wage share
732:CiteSeerX
709:154352931
619:155054474
610:10230/343
454:154604869
259:154904142
71:Economics
60:The term
47:economist
555:55836142
518:43107795
294:43107795
209:43107795
106:Research
757:Sources
483:1808271
446:1151715
411:2227704
368:1924668
331:2227124
136:Kalecki
128:Kuznets
120:Johnson
100:Ricardo
56:Origins
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364:JSTOR
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205:JSTOR
146:like
132:Solow
98:like
656:SSRN
158:and
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