1. Introduction

Abstract

There has been a significant decline in the share of wages in GDP in both developed and developing countries since the 1980s. This was accompanied by another trend towards greater inequality in personal income distribution, particularly by increases in income shares of the top 1% of the distribution (Atkinson, et al., 2011). These developments indicate a clear reversal of the trends towards relatively egalitarian income distribution during the post-war era. This paper analyses the determinants of the wage share (labour compensation as a ratio to value added) using sectoral data with country specific estimations for Austria and selected OECD countries.