logoalt Hacker News

hn_throwaway_99yesterday at 5:42 PM1 replyview on HN

Thanks very much for providing those sources.

That said, it's a huge pet peeve of mine when someone makes a statement, and then provides sources to back up that statement, but the actual sources contradict their original statement.

You stated "but AIUI this is mostly a statistical illusion caused by changes to US tax law- previously income that was attributed to 'labor' shifted over to LLCs/S corps for more beneficial tax rates." But then your very first linked article states "First, about a third of the decline in the published labor share appears to be an artifact of statistical procedures used to impute the labor income of the self-employed that underlies the headline measure."

I think there is a huge difference between 1/3 (while still a lot and an important factor) and what you wrote, "mostly a statistical illusion", especially since other substantial factors proposed in that article are things like offshoring.


Replies

hash872yesterday at 8:35 PM

I'm a bit skeptical that you absorbed these 3 pieces in the time it took you to respond (they are 27, 29, and 63 pages, respectively), but they find a range of effect sizes here- the other two a bit more strongly. I feel comfortable with my original statement, though I suppose there's always room for nitpicking

show 1 reply