Labor share
The “Biggest Puzzle in Economics”: Why the “Superstar Economy” Lacks Any Actual Superstars
A new study finds that the contribution of superstar firms to US productivity growth has decreased by more than 40 percent over the past...
Rents and Inclusive Growth: A Decline in Rent Sharing Implies Growing Income Inequalities
A new study looks at the long-run evolution of rent sharing between companies and workers in the UK and finds that rent sharing...
How the FTC Protects Strong Employers and Targets Weak Workers
Since the 1970s, the US has seen a growing power imbalance between workers and employers. This story was not inevitable, but the product of...
Why the FTC Should Focus on Labor Monopsony
Economic theory tells us that firms are more likely to exploit labor market power than product market power in the United States today. And...
What Current Research (Still) Gets Wrong about Market Power
Two much-discussed new studies argue that market power is on the rise not only in the United States, but also around the world. Here,...
70 Years of US Corporate Profits
A new Stigler Center working paper shows that after decades of decline, profits started increasing in the early 1980s.
Financial profit is ostensibly the...
Factorless Income and Some Skepticism on the Case for Rising Markups
If imputed payments to labor and capital don’t add up to GDP, what should be done with the residual? New research from Chicago Booth...
Strong Employers and Weak Employees: Study Sheds New Light on How Labor Market Concentration Hurts Workers
New study finds that wages are significantly lower in concentrated labor markets—and even lower in labor markets where unionization rates are low.
America’s decades-long wage...
Are Markups Increasing?
A new Stigler Center paper challenges recent research on market power in the US, showing that markups did not increase over the last few...
New Study Shows Just How Bad the US Labor Market’s Competition Problem Really Is
In recent decades, antitrust policy has all but ignored the issue of monopsony power. Yet a new paper shows that across the US economy,...
