Explaining the Decline in the US Labor Share: Taxation and Automation

in Interenational Tax and Public Finance (2022)

This study provides evidence for the USA that the secular decline in the labor share is not only explained by technical change or globalization, but also by the dynamics of factor taxation, automation ... [more ▼]

This study provides evidence for the USA that the secular decline in the labor share is not only explained by technical change or globalization, but also by the dynamics of factor taxation, automation capital (robots), and population growth. First, we empirically find indications of co-integration for the period from the last quarter of the 20th to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Permanent effects on factor shares emanate from relative factor taxation. The latter also have a lasting effect on the use of robots. Variance decompositions reveal that taxing contributes to changes in the two income shares and in automation capital. Second, we analyze and calibrate a neoclassical growth model extended to include factor taxation, automation capital, and capital adjustment costs. Labor and automation capital are perfect substitutes, whereas labor and traditional capital are complements. The model replicates the dynamics of the observed functional income distribution in the USA during the 1965–2015 period. Counterfactual experiments suggest that the fall in the labor share would have been significantly smaller if labor and capital income tax rates had remained at their respective level of the 1960s. [less ▲]

Population Aging and Inventive Activity

in Macroeconomic Dynamics (2022), 26

This research empirically establishes and interprets the hypothesis that the relationship between population aging and inventive activity is hump-shaped. We estimate a reduced form, hump-shaped ... [more ▼]

This research empirically establishes and interprets the hypothesis that the relationship between population aging and inventive activity is hump-shaped. We estimate a reduced form, hump-shaped relationship in a panel of 33 OECD countries over the period 1960–2012, as well as in a panel of 248 NUTS 2 regions in Europe over the period 2001–2012. The increasing part of the hump may be associated with various channels including the acknowledgement that population aging requires inventive activity to guarantee current and future standards of living, or the observation that older educated workers are more innovative than their young peers. The decreasing part may reflect the tendency of aging societies to lose dynamism and the willingness to take risks. [less ▲]

The supply of hours worked and fluctuations between growth regimes

Scientific Conference (2021)

Declining hours of work per worker in conjunction with a growing work force may give rise to fluctuations between growth regimes. This is shown in an overlapping generations model with two-period lived ... [more ▼]

Declining hours of work per worker in conjunction with a growing work force may give rise to fluctuations between growth regimes. This is shown in an overlapping generations model with two-period lived individuals endowed with Boppart-Krusell preferences (Boppart and Krusell (2020)). On the supply side, economic growth is due to the expansion of consumption-good varieties through endogenous research. A sufficiently negative equilibrium elasticity of the individual supply of hours worked to an expansion in the set of consumption-good varieties destabilizes the steady state so that equilibrium trajectories may fluctuate between two growth regimes, one with and the other without an active research sector. Fluctuations affect intergenerational welfare, the evolution of GDP, and the functional income distribution. A stabilization policy can shift the economy onto its steady-state path. Fluctuations arise for empirically reasonable parameter constellations. The economics of fluctuations between growth regimes is linked to the intergenerational trade of shares and their pricing in the asset market. [less ▲]

Automation, Growth, and Factor Shares in the Era of Population Aging

Presentation (2021)

How does population aging affect economic growth and factor shares in times of increasingly automatable production processes? The present paper addresses this question in a new macroeconomic model of ... [more ▼]

How does population aging affect economic growth and factor shares in times of increasingly automatable production processes? The present paper addresses this question in a new macroeconomic model of automation where competitive firms perform tasks to produce output. Tasks require labor and machines as inputs. New machines embody superior technological knowledge and substitute for labor in the performance of tasks. Automation is labor-augmenting in the reduced-form aggregate production function. If wages increase then the incentive to automate becomes stronger. Moreover, the labor share declines even though the aggregate production function is Cobb–Douglas. Population aging due to a higher longevity reduces automation in the short and promotes it in the long run. It boosts the growth rate of absolute and per-capita GDP in the short and the long run, lifts the labor share in the short and reduces it in the long run. Population aging due to a decline in fertility increases automation, reduces the growth rate of GDP, and lowers the labor share in the short and the long run. In the short run, it may or may not increase the growth rate of per-capita GDP, in the long run it unequivocally accelerates per-capita GDP growth. [less ▲]

The supply of hours worked and fluctuations between growth regimes

in Journal of Economic Theory (2021)

Declining hours of work per worker in conjunction with a growing work force may give rise to fluctuations between growth regimes. This is shown in an overlapping generations model with two-period lived ... [more ▼]

Declining hours of work per worker in conjunction with a growing work force may give rise to fluctuations between growth regimes. This is shown in an overlapping generations model with two-period lived individuals endowed with Boppart-Krusell preferences (Boppart and Krusell (2020)). On the supply side, economic growth is due to the expansion of consumption-good varieties through endogenous research. A sufficiently negative equilibrium elasticity of the individual supply of hours worked to an expansion in the set of consumption-good varieties destabilizes the steady state so that equilibrium trajectories may fluctuate between two growth regimes, one with and the other without an active research sector. Fluctuations affect intergenerational welfare, the evolution of GDP, and the functional income distribution. A stabilization policy can shift the economy onto its steady-state path. Fluctuations arise for empirically reasonable parameter constellations. The economics of fluctuations between growth regimes is linked to the intergenerational trade of shares and their pricing in the asset market. [less ▲]

Zur Zukunft der Telearbeit ("On the Future of Teleworking")

Article for general public (2020)

Endogenous Task-Based Technical Change - Factor Scarcity and Factor Prices

in Economics and Business Review (2020), 6

This paper develops a static model of endogenous task-based technical progress to study how factor scarcity induces technological progress and changes in factor prices. The equilibrium technology is multi ... [more ▼]

This paper develops a static model of endogenous task-based technical progress to study how factor scarcity induces technological progress and changes in factor prices. The equilibrium technology is multi-dimensional and not strongly factorsaving in the sense of Acemoglu (2010). Nevertheless, labour scarcity induces labour productivity growth. There is a weak but no strong absolute equilibrium bias. This model provides a plausible interpretation of the famous contention of Hicks (1932) about the role of factor prices and factor endowments for induced innovations. It may serve as a microfoundation for canonical macro-economic models. Moreover, it accommodates features like endogenous factor supplies and a binding minimum wage. . [less ▲]

The World Economic History in 4 Figures, 1 Photo, and 1 Table

Conference given outside the academic context (2020)

Tasks, Technology, and Factor Prices in the Neoclassical Production Sector

in Journal of Economics (2020), 131(2), 101-121

This paper introduces tasks into the neoclassical production sector. Competitive firms choose the profit-maximizing amounts of factor-specific tasks that determine their factor demands and output supplies ... [more ▼]

This paper introduces tasks into the neoclassical production sector. Competitive firms choose the profit-maximizing amounts of factor-specific tasks that determine their factor demands and output supplies. We show that the effect of factor-augmenting technical change on relative and absolute factor prices can be decomposed into a productivity effect and a task-demand effect of opposite sign. These effects appear since the novel task-based approach distinguishes between the demands for tasks and the demands for factors. This perspective provides a new intuition for the emergence of relative and absolute factor biases and the role of the elasticity of substitution. [less ▲]

The Changing Future of Work

Conference given outside the academic context (2020)