2024/06/22 by Norman Sedgley, Bruce Elmslie · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality #Global trade and economics #Firm Innovation and Growth
paper · doi:10.1002/soej.12713
openalex publication_date 2024/06/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/02
Abstract A well‐established literature documents the role of outsourcing and technological change in explaining the growing skills premium in the U.S. economy from the 1970s through the late 1990s. In the 1980s labor's share of income relative to capital also began to decline. These two trends continue through the great recession. Separate literatures identify different reasons for the change in the skills premium and the decline in labor's share. This article considers the explanations for these two phenomena in a unified framework. The analysis is based on U.S. manufacturing data from 2002 through 2017, a period when there were significant shifts in the rate of growth in outsourcing and market concentration.