This paper provides the most careful and clearheaded study to date of the factor distribution of income in the United States. Its most important contribution is the introduction of a new concept, “factorless income,” which is the residual after assigning aggregate income to labor and capital. Unlike many other studies, which simply assume that factorless income corresponds to either economic profit, unmeasured capital, or a return premium, this paper is agnostic and entertains all three possibilities. It turns out that none of the three is a perfect match for the data, but economic profit is a particularly ill-fitting explanation. This calls into question some recent work on rising markups in the United States, and I suspect that Karabarbounis andNeiman’s critique will quickly become central to the literature. The following comment has two parts. First, I will provide my own brief tour of factor income trends in the United States, covering much of the same territory as Karabarbounis and Neiman but in a cursory and simplifiedway. Second, I will discuss the paper’s key contributions, especially its rejection of “case P,” the interpretation of factorless income as economic profit. I conclude that the paper is quite successful inmaking its case, and that futurework should build upon it by combining the paper’s three cases, with a special emphasis on “case R,” the discrepancy between interest rates and the rate of return on capital.

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评论

这篇论文提供了迄今为止对美国收入要素分配最仔细、最清醒的研究。它最重要的贡献是引入了一个新概念“无要素收入”，即总收入分配给劳动力和资本后的剩余部分。许多其他研究简单地假设无因素收入对应于经济利润、未衡量的资本或回报溢价，这篇论文是不可知的，并考虑了所有三种可能性。事实证明，这三者都不是数据的完美匹配，但经济利润是一个特别不恰当的解释。这使人们对最近有关美国加价上涨的一些工作提出质疑，我怀疑 Karabarbounis 和 Neiman 的批评将很快成为文献的核心。以下评论分为两部分。首先，我将简要介绍美国的要素收入趋势，涵盖与 Karabarbounis 和 Neiman 相同的大部分领域，但以粗略和简化的方式进行。其次，我将讨论这篇论文的主要贡献，尤其是它对“案例 P”的拒绝，即将无要素收入解释为经济利润。我的结论是，这篇论文在论证方面非常成功，未来的工作应该通过结合本文的三个案例，并特别强调“案例 R”，即利率与资本回报率之间的差异。尤其是它拒绝“案例 P”，将无要素收入解释为经济利润。我的结论是，这篇论文在论证方面非常成功，未来的工作应该通过结合本文的三个案例，并特别强调“案例 R”，即利率与资本回报率之间的差异。特别是它拒绝“案例 P”，将无要素收入解释为经济利润。我的结论是，这篇论文在论证方面非常成功，未来的工作应该通过结合本文的三个案例，并特别强调“案例 R”，即利率与资本回报率之间的差异。