Benjamin Bridgman

Is Labor's Loss Capital's Gain? Gross versus Net Labor Shares

US labor share has been falling since the 1970s. I show that it has not fallen as much once items that do not add to capital, depreciation and production taxes, are netted out. Recent net labor share is within its historical range, whereas gross share is at its lowest level. This effect holds for other high-income economies. The overall picture is no longer one of unprecedented, globally declining labor share. Using gross share as a proxy for net share can give misleading results. US gross share and inequality are correlated, whereas net share, the correct measure, is not.

Do intangible assets explain high U.S. foreign direct investment returns

U.S. investors abroad receive a higher return on their assets than their counterparts that invest in the United States. I examine the degree to which excluding intangible assets and repatriation taxes from the international transactions accounts can account for this gap. Using a growth accounting framework, I find that adjusting for these exclusions cuts the gap by more than half. The overall returns gap is nearly eliminated when the adjusted FDI rates of return are applied to the overall overseas asset portfolio. The results suggest a portion of the gap is persistent.

Market Entry and Trade Weighted Import Costs

Trade costs have fallen surprisingly little given the large increase in international trade in the last 50 years. This paper examines whether trade costs are properly measured. I show theoretically that trade weighted measures will underestimate the changes in trade costs when there are fixed market entry costs and quality differences. Newly traded goods enter at higher trade costs than previously traded ones. Lower import costs shift trade to low quality goods with higher measured trade costs. U.S. import costs fall twice as fast as trade weighted measures from 1974 to 2004 when the impacts of shifting and new goods are removed. Once the biases are removed, typical estimates of trade elasticities can explain increasing trade.

The fall (and rise) of labour share in New Zealand

ABSTRACT The share of national income going to labour in New Zealand fell substantially between the 1970s and the end of the century. Approximately half of this decline was then recovered in the following decade. In this paper, we argue that the decline from the mid-1980s onwards is due to public sector reforms. Corporatisation re-orientated the public trading enterprises away from a broad range of social and trading objectives towards generating profits, while increased fiscal discipline in non-market government departments reduced payroll costs. Consistent with this hypothesis, we show that most of the decline in aggregate labour share from the mid-1980s onwards can be attributed to a significant fall in the labour share of the public sector. To more formally analyse the effects of the reforms, we build a simple model of structural transition. The model yields several predictions that are consistent with observed trends in sectoral labour share. First, there is a large and permanent decline in public sector labour share after the reforms. Second, there is a smaller, short-run decline in private sector labour share that is reversed over the long run. The model can, therefore, explain not only the decline in aggregate labour share from the mid-1980s onwards; it can also explain the partial recovery in labour share beginning in 2002.