Bowley's law in the context of "Wage share"

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⭐ Core Definition: Bowley's law

Bowley's law, also known as the law of the constant wage share, is a stylized fact of economics which states that the wage share of a country, i.e., the share of a country's economic output that is given to employees as compensation for their work (usually in the form of wages), remains constant over time. It is named after the English economist Arthur Bowley. Research conducted near the start of the 21st century, however, found wage share to have declined since the 1980s in most major economies.

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👉 Bowley's law in the context of Wage share

In economics, the wage share or labor share is the part of national income, or the income of a particular economic sector, allocated to wages (labor). It is related to the capital or profit share, the part of income going to capital,which is also known as the KY ratio.The labor share is a key indicator for the distribution of income.

The wage share is countercyclical; that is, it tends to fall when output increases and rise when output decreases. Despite fluctuating over the business cycle, the wage share was once thought to be stable, which Keynes described as "one of the most surprising, yet best-established facts in the whole range of economic statistics".The wage share has declined in most developed countries since the 1980s.

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