The NERI webinar 'Understanding changes in the labour share in Ireland and Denmark' took place as a Zoom webinar on Monday 20 December, 2021 at 15:00. Dr. Eoin Flaherty, Lecturer/Assistant Professor, Maynooth University made the presentation.
Abstract:
The share of national income going to workers has decreased steadily across Europe since the 1980s. This apparently uniform decrease in labour’s share conceals differences amongst states however—in ‘liberal’ Ireland, this fall has been drastic, while that of ‘social democratic’ Denmark has been moderate. This article presents a parallel time series analysis of institutional and structural factors shaping labour’s share in Ireland and Denmark.
Our results show that factors common to the study of variation in labour’s share operate in different ways in different countries, both in magnitude and causal mechanism. We find that stressors such as global trade, foreign investment and high-tech growth produce different effects in each location. Equally, protections such as unionisation, leftist cabinets and welfare spending display contradictory effects in both locations.
We conclude that ‘power resource’ models of labour share should be supplemented with comparative approaches that emphasise how institutionalised socio-political logics mediate returns to labour.
Webinar format:
In this webinar, Dr. Eoin Flaherty, Lecturer/Assistant Professor, Maynooth University presented his joint research done with Professor Seán Ó Riain, Lecturer, Maynooth University - Article in Oxford Socio-Economic Review, 2020, Vol. 18, No. 4, 1039-1064 (below).
The discussion was open to the attendees and the chairperson, Paul Goldrick-Kelly, NERI collected questions and presented them to Dr. Eoin Flaherty. Please find video here.