关键词: 劳动报酬份额, “U型”变化, 结构转型, 投入产出模型

Abstract: The labor compensation’s share in China increased dramatically during the decade after the global financial crisis, contradicting its sharp decline during the decade before the crisis. In this paper, we investigate the driving factors in the two stages of China’s labor compensation share U-shaped curve. By combining the multiplicative structural decomposition analysis with the Logarithmic mean Divisa index (LMDI), we construct a more unified factor decomposition framework. We find that the “within-industry effect” plays a leading role over both stages of the U-shaped curve. The “final demand structure effect” and “production chain structure effect” decrease the overall labor compensation share over both stages, but their effect is weaker in the latter stage. The “value-added coefficient effect” increases the labor compensation’s share over both stages. Because of the adjustment of supply on the labor market, the growth rate of average wage and that of labor productivity for most industries in China reversed before and after the global financial crisis, which further led to the U-shaped curve turning of labor compensation’s share for most industries. Moreover, the international comparison shows that there was a significant “discount” of the labor compensation share at the industrial level before the financial crisis in China, but it tended to disappear later on. This paper could help to deepen the understanding of the structural changes of primary income distribution in the Chinese economy, and provide certain policy implications for issues such as expanding domestic demand and transforming industrial development mode.

Key words: Labor Compensation Share, U-shaped Curve, Structural Transformation, Input-output Model