Globalization and Income Distribution: What Is the Role for Workers’ Structural Bargaining Power?

ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether labour's structural bargaining power, measured via network centrality in global input−output linkages, affects the distribution of income towards labour at sectoral, national and global scales. Building on the power resources approach, this paper suggests a conceptual and empirical framework for measuring labour's structural power through its network position in global input–output relations. Using the country‐sector centrality and data from the World Input‐Output Database (1995–2009, 40 countries, 35 sectors), I estimate dynamic effects on labour's value‐added share with local projections, controlling for associational power, capital intensity and productivity. Results show that structurally labour employed in the central country‐sectors tend to capture higher labour shares at national and global scales. The study contributes to the power resources approach by operationalizing structural power as a quantifiable, macroeconomically significant position in global value chains.