Research On The Changing Trend Of China’s Labor Share And The Perfecting Distribution Mechanism

The proportion of labor compensation in GDP is labor share.It is an important indicator of the initial distribution of national income.Since the reform and opening up in 1978,the proportion of China’s labor share has generally shown a U-shaped trend.The large fluctuation in the labor share will not only directly affect the income difference between capital owners and workers,but also indirectly affect the social situation and economic growth.More importantly,labor share is the specific form of the primary distribution of national income.The"Decision" of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Party incorporated the distribution method into the connotation of the basic socialist economic system,emphasizing the need to increase the proportion of labor compensation in primary distribution.In this context,research on the changing trend of China’s labor share,and putting forward reasonable theoretical explanations and improvement measures,will not only further enrich the distribution theory,but also have important practical significance.Our research is based on the theory of Marxist political economy and the research methods of modern economics.According to Marx’s distribution theory,productivity and production relations jointly determine the distribution relationship.First,from the perspective of productivity,capital and institutions are the key variables.Research and analysis lead to the decline in the labor income after reform and opening up,and the internal mechanism of the rise from2008 to 2011;Secondly,from the perspective of production relations,using labor bargaining power as the key variable,the internal mechanism of the fluctuation of the labor income ratio between 2012 and 2017 was studied;Finally,from the perspective of the production side in Marxist economics,it defines and measures industrial upgrading,and explores its mechanism and effect on the change of China’s labor share.We use the data of regions,industries,and individual companies to conduct an empirical test on the internal mechanism of changes in China’s labor share.The main conclusions are as follows:In the short term,the rise in the capital technology composition of the secondary industry has not fully manifested as an increase in the organic composition of capital,thereby changing the effect of the organic composition of capital within the sector and the effect of the variable capital ratio between sectors.Under the combined effect of the rise in the capital and technology composition of various industries,the proportion of China’s labor share will show a U-shaped change;the bargaining power of workers who determine changes in labor relations will be affected by market factors,after the global financial crisis in 2008,Quality factors and institutional factors have been continuously strengthened.China’s labor relations have gradually reached an equilibrium state between 2012 and 2017,which explains the fluctuation process of China’s labor share;the industrial upgrade is characterized by the relative expansion of high-tech industries,it can effectively increase the proportion of overall labor share,which results from the effective allocation of industrial capital and the increase of labor share of highly skilled workers.From the perspective of increasing the labor share,we proposes to improve the primary distribution mechanism:against the obj ective background of the continuous rise of the organic composition of capital,accelerate the transformation of industrial structure and expand the relative volume of the tertiary industry in order to accommodate more labor increase the proportion of overall labor income;while continuing to strengthen vocational education and improve the overall educational level of workers,encourage and guide workers to negotiate wages,and introduce corresponding policies to provide protection and support to ensure the distribution of work according to work;Accelerate the process of supply-side structural reform,increase capital investment for industrial upgrading,and expand the relative scale of high-tech industries in order to accommodate more high-skilled workers,thereby increasing the proportion of overall labor share.