The Effect of Enterprises’ Digital Transformation on Enterprises’ Labor Share—Wage Rate, Labor Productivity and Heterogeneity of Different Enterprises

劳动收入占比的下降加剧了收入不平等，阻碍了经济增长。企业正在加速数字化转型(DT)，然而，这将如何影响劳动份额仍有待确定。本文利用2012~2022年中国A股上市公司数据进行实证检验，并采用固定效应模型考察DT对劳动份额的影响。实验结果显示，数字化转型在总体上增加了企业的劳动收入比重，从而达到了“分好蛋糕”的目标；数字化转型可以利用薪资率和劳动生产率影响劳动收入份额，但其对薪资率的影响超过了对劳动生产率的影响，由此形成数字化转型增加了劳动收入份额的净效应。这一结论在替换核心解释变量和预测变量的计算方法、调整时间范围等一系列稳健性检验中仍然有效。此外，数字化对非国有企业、劳动密集型企业、高创新高教育型企业的劳动收入份额的促进作用更为突出。本研究为数字化转型的收入分配效应提供了新的实证证据。The declining labor share of income is exacerbating income inequality and hindering economic growth. Firms are accelerating digital transformation (DT), however, how this will affect labor share remains to be determined. In this paper, we conduct empirical tests using data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2012~2022 and examine the impact of DT on labor share using a fixed-effects model. The empirical results show that DT increases the share of labor income of enterprises as a whole and achieves the goal of “sharing the cake”; DT affects the share of labor income through the wage rate and labor productivity, and the impact on the wage rate is larger than the impact on labor productivity, thus generating the net effect of DT in increasing the share of labor income of enterprises. This conclusion is still valid in a series of robustness tests, such as replacing the calculation methods of the core explanatory and predictor variables and adjusting the time horizon. In addition, the contribution of digitalization to the labor income share of non-state-owned firms, labor-intensive firms, and highly innovative and highly educated firms is more prominent. This study provides new empirical evidence on the income distribution effect of digital transformation.