- Factor shares
In
macroeconomics , factor shares are the share of production given to thefactors of production , usuallycapital and labor. This concept uses the methods and fits into the framework ofneoclassical economics .Derivation
In
exogenous growth model s, theproduction function can be represented by:with "Y" total production, "K" capital, and "L" labor.So a
representative agent will attempt to maximize a profit function:where is the cost to the firm, "r" the rental rate of capital, and "w" the wage rate for labor.As in
microeconomics supply and demand models, first-order conditions that the derivative of this function with respect to capital and labor will be zero at the functions maximum. Thus we can calculate the wages and the rental rate of capital:and .
Now we can write the expenditure allocated to labor as
and to capital as
So the factor share devoted to labor is:
and the factor share devoted to capital is:
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.