ABSTRACT
During the war, the reduction of labour’s share in value added was partly a function of the lag of rising money wages behind both final prices1 and raw material costs, i.e. a result of both rising gross margins and a declining share of labour in total prime costs. In the immediate post-war inflation, on the other hand, money wages rose extremely swiftly, so that they exerted active pressure on gross margins, rising faster than final prices,2 while raw material costs tended to lag slightly behind unit labour costs. The post-war rise of money wages up to 1949 was, thus, the principal active factor in raising labour’s share in gross value added. Between 1949 and 1952 the rate of rise of money wages was rather slower than in the immediately preceding years, and seems to have lagged slightly behind final prices.3 It was still sufficiently fast, however, in conjunction with the active pressure on gross margins from rising raw material costs, to continue the shift towards an increased share for labour in gross value added.
