Does employees’ compensation vary with corporate profit?

Abstract

We find that from about 1965 to 1983 US employees’ compensation, EC, relative to corporate profit, CP, increases in the long run, and from 1984 to 2013 the compensation decreases relative to profit to about half its 1983 value. The first period includes “US peacetime inflation”, 1970 -78 and the last period includes “The Great moderation”, 1985 – 1997. With the exception of a short period 1998 -2003, the dominant pattern is that corporate profit and employees’ compensation increase and decrease in concert, but compensation lags profit with about 10 quarters. From 1965 to present, cycle times for the EC-CP pair generally decreases from about 60 quarters to about 40 quarters.