The Natural Resource Boom and the Uneven Fall of the Labor Share

We study the effect of the upsurge of natural resources income from the commodity price boom of the 2000s on the functional distribution of income. To do so, we build a general equilibrium model of Dutch disease that characterizes how natural resource windfalls affect equilibrium factor shares. The theory suggests that the response of factor shares to exogenous changes in commodity prices depends on the relative intensity in which factors are used in the tradable and natural resource sectors. We construct estimates of income shares accruing to raw labor, human capital, physical capital, and na... Mehr ...