The Elusive Explanation for the Declining Labor Share
综述了美国等国家劳动收入份额下降的多种解释，包括技术变革、全球化、市场垄断、工会衰落和人口结构变化，并指出使用横截面数据评估该现象的陷阱。
A vast literature seeks to measure and explain the apparent decline in the labor share in national income that has occurred in recent times in the United States and elsewhere. The culprits include technological change, increased globalization and the rise of China, the enhanced exercise of market power by large firms in concentrated product markets, the decline in unionization rates and the erosion in the bargaining power of workers in labor markets, and the changing composition of the workforce due to a slowdown in population growth and a rise in educational attaintment. We review this literature, with special emphasis on the pitfalls associated with using cross-sectional data to assess this phenomenon and the reasons why the body of papers collectively explains the phenomenon many times over.