Open AccessRevisiting Capital-Skill Complementarity, Inequality, and Labor Share
Author(s) -
Lee E. Ohanian,
Musa Orak,
Shihan Shen
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international finance discussion papers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2767-4509
pISSN - 1073-2500
DOI - 10.17016/ifdp.2021.1319
Subject(s) - economics , complementarity (molecular biology) , nonfarm payrolls , labour economics , depreciation (economics) , inequality , wage share , economic inequality , econometrics , human capital , capital formation , wage , efficiency wage , financial capital , ecology , mathematical analysis , genetics , mathematics , biology , agriculture , economic growth
This paper revisits capital-skill complementarity and inequality, as in Krusell, Ohanian, Rios-Rull and Violante (KORV, 2000). Using their methodology, we study how well the KORV model accounts for more recent data, including the large changes in the labor's share of income that were not present in KORV. We study both labor share of gross income (as in KORV), and income net of depreciation. We also use nonfarm business sector output as an alternative measure of production to real GDP. We find strong evidence for continued capital-skill complementarity in the most recent data, and we also find that the model continues to closely account for the skill premium. The model captures the average level of labor share, though it overpredicts its level by 2-4 percentage points at the end of the period.