American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics · 2026 · Joachim Hubmer、Pascual Restrepo
中文摘要
美国的劳动收入份额一直在下降,尤其是在制造业和零售业。然而,这些行业中典型企业的劳动收入份额却在上升。我们构建了一个模型,其中企业为实现任务自动化需承担固定成本。用于自动化的资本品价格下降能够重现所观察到的模式:大企业将任务自动化,从而降低总体劳动收入份额,而中位企业则继续采用劳动密集型技术运营。当将自动化固定成本校准至与观察到的采用异质性相匹配时,模型能够定量地再现资本价格下降所导致的总量与企业层面事实,在制造业尤为明显。(JEL D21, D33, E25, L60, O32)
Abstract
The US labor share has declined, especially in manufacturing and retail. Yet the labor share of a typical firm in these sectors has risen. We introduce a model where firms incur fixed costs to automate tasks. A decline in the price of capital goods used for automation reproduces the observed patterns: large firms automate tasks, reducing the aggregate labor share, while the median firm continues to operate a labor-intensive technology. When calibrating the automation fixed costs to match the observed adoption heterogeneity, the model generates the aggregate and firm-level facts quantitatively in response to lower capital prices, especially in manufacturing. (JEL D21, D33, E25, L60, O32)