This paper estimates the effects of capital accumulation on industry labor shares by taking account of capital heterogeneity. Using a cross-country, cross-industry dataset covering 15 European countries over 38 industries, I take advantage of a detailed breakdown of the capital stock distinguishing between physical, ICT and intangible assets. The results suggest that, over the 1995-2015 period, capital accumulation has not been a driving force of declining labor shares - if anything the opposite. Performing a cross-section regression analysis on the relationship between long differences in capital intensities and industry labor shares, I find that accumulation of physical capital in general, and Machinery & Equipment in particular, are the only asset types showing a statistically significant correlation with the labor share, suggesting a positive association. In contrast to previous research, I do not document a negative relationship between ICT capital and labor shares. I do, however, find evidence suggesting that it might be investments in Software & Databases that explain these earlier findings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-452911 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Broman, Julius |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Nationalekonomiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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