Labor Income Share in Asia

This is the first study that puts together a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the drivers of the labor income share across a number of countries in Asia. This book provides an insightful companion to the study of labor income shares that plays a vital role in understanding the relationship between national income and personal income, and the relationship between wage inequality and wealth inequality. The timing of the book is ideal, as the ongoing debate over a global decline in the labor income share is far from settled. To this extent, evidence from the Asian countries is mixed. The labor income share in some Asian countries has been rising since the 1990s. The purpose of this edited volume is to gain more insights on the potential drivers of the Asian experience. The first half of the book pays attention to the measurement problems related to the earnings of self-employed and workers in the informal sector. Then it puts together country case studies examining a wide range of factors driving the labor income share in Asia.

1 Previous Literature, New Findings (Gary Fields and Saumik Paul). - Part I Conceptual Issues. - 2 Does the Exposure to Routinization Explain the Evolution of the Labor Share of Income? Evidence from Asia (Mitali Das). - 3 The Labor Share of Income Around the World: Evidence from a Panel Dataset (Marta Guerriero). - 4 Technology, Market Regulations, and Labor Share Dynamics (Francesco Venturini, Mary O Mahony and Michela Vecchi). - 5 Globalization, Structural Transformation, and the Labor Income Share (Yoko Oishi, Ken Suzuki and Saumik Paul). - 6 Democracy and the Labor Share of Income: A Cross-Country Analysis (Marta Guerriero). - Part II The Drivers of Labor Income Share. - 7 Trade, Labor Share, and Productivity in India s Industries (Dibyendu Maiti). - 8 What Explains the Increase in the Labor Income Share in Malaysia? (Allen Ng, Tan Zhai Gen and Tan Theng). - 9 Institutions, Deindustrialization, and Functional Income Distribution in Japan (Kyoji Fukao and Cristiano Perugini). - 10 A Microeconomic Analysis of the Declining Labor Share in Japan (Koji Ito, Kyoji Fukao and Cristiano Perugini).