Mokre Patrick (2021): The Quantile Impacts of Real Competition on Industrial Wage Inequality in the United States, 1998-2018. New School Economic Review, Vol. 12 (2023), 52–79.

Abstract
Competition between firms has a substantial impact on wage inequality between workers. The classical political economics literature proposes that turbulent dynamics of real competition within and between industries provide the framework for wage bargaining between workers and firms. Turbulently equalizing limits provide the link between competition and wage growth, while persistently different factors are responsible for persistent industrial wage premiums. In this paper we test the theoretical contribution of Botwinick (1993) and the empirical findings on the aggregate level by Mokre and Rehm (2020) over the full wage distribution. We combine employee level data from the CPS and industry level data from BEA industry accounts from 1998-2018 to find that the impacts of competition on wages are substantial and of unambiguous signs, but differential magnitude between income quantiles in those industries where both incremental profit rates and wage growth participate in turbulent equalization. The results address the suspicion that quasi-managerial profit sharing (rather than wage setting) carry the econometric link between competition and wages, and provide insights into the distributional dynamics of bargaining under real competition.

JEL Codes
B51, J31, J62

Ertl Michael and Mokre Patrick (2022): Ver­mö­gens­steu­ern gegen Über­reich­tum: Poten­zia­le und Grenzen. Kurswechsel 3/2022.

Vermögensteuern kommen in der Verteilungsdebatte als direkte Maßnahme gegen steigende Ungleichheit auf. In der Forschung zu öffentlichen Haushalten werden sie zur Umverteilung des Steuervolumens diskutiert. Wir untersuchen verschiedene in Österreich präsentierte Vermögensteuer-Modelle und den international diskutierten Vorschlag von Piketty (2020) auf ihr potenzielles Aufkommen und die Effekte auf soziale Ungleichheiten. Hierzu unterscheiden wir zwischen moderaten Modellen, deren Steuersatz hinter dem jährlichen Vermögenszuwachs zurückbleibt, und konfiskatorischen Ansätzen, die das Vermögen der Reichsten mittelfristig reduzieren. Außerdem kombinieren wir die Pyramide der Vermögensfunktionen (Fessler et al. 2012) mit den möglichen Wirkungen von Vermögensteuern durch zusätzliche finanzielle Mittel und reduzierter Ungleichheit.

JEL Codes: D31, H22, Z13

Işıkara Güney and Mokre Patrick (2021): Price-Value Deviations and the Labor Theory of Value. Evidence from 42 Countries, 2000-2017. Review of Political Economy, Volume 34, 2022 – Issue 1. DOI: 10.1080/09538259.2021.1904648.

Abstract
The relationship between prices and labour values has been the source of fruitful controversy since the earliest Classical Political Economists. The alleged refutation of the labour theory of value was an integral part of the marginalist attack against Classical and Marxist analysis. However, statistical analysis of price-value relationships made possible by the data available since the later 20^th century suggest considerable empirical strength of the labour theory of value.

We trace the intellectual history of the price-value relationship and its inseparable link to capitalist competition through Smith, Ricardo, Marx and Sraffa. Following Shaikh and Ochoa, we present an empirical model of testing their hypotheses that (1) labour values regulate prices of production and (2) serve as gravitational centers for market prices. The analysis of a large dataset of 42 countries and 15 years reveal only small and stable deviations and thus lend support to the Classical Political Economic analysis. With a sample of over 36,000 price vectors, we provide the most comprehensive empirical application of its class and generalize the results that have been established in the relevant literature.

Keywords: price, value, input-output, classical political economics, labour theory of value

JEL Classification: B12, B51, C67, O57, P16 

Mokre Patrick and Rehm Miriam, 2020. “Inter-Industry Wage Inequality: Persistent differences and turbulent equalization,” Cambridge Journal of Economics.

Abstract

The empirical stylised fact of persistent inter-industry wage differentials is an enduring challenge to economic theory. This paper applies the classical theory of ‘real competition’ to the turbulent dynamics of these inter-industrial wage differentials.

Theoretically, we argue that competitive wage determination can be decomposed into equalising, dispersing and turbulently equalising factors. Empirically, we show graphically and econometrically for 31 US industries in 1987–2016 that wage differentials, like regulating profit rates, are governed by turbulent equalisation. Furthermore, we apply a fixed-effects OLS as well as a hierarchical Bayesian inference model and find that the link between regulating profit rates and wage differentials is positive, significant and robust.

Mokre Patrick (2019), Ausnahmezustand Geringverdienst? Ursachen der Beschäftigungsverhältnisse unter der Steuergrenze. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 2019, Band 45 Nr.2, S. 203-227

Abstract

Wage income lower than the minimum threshold for taxation is an exception. However, the share of low-income earners in Austria is substantial: A quarter of all wage earners and 12% of all employees. The extensive literature on the subject agrees that low income is an exceptional situation that can be traced to atypical employment and demographic factors. Based on the 2016 micro-census, I estimate the impact of both demographic and labor relations-factors on low-income susceptibility. I conclude that low income in Austria is more likely to affect women and young people, workers with lower formal education, those with care responsibilities, part-time employees and temporary workers.