July 01, 2014
Quarterly GDP data are erratic and profit data in particular are subject to large revisions, but hey it’s still worth noting a big drop in profit shares reported for the first quarter of 2014. The data released by the Commerce Department last week showed the profit share falling from just over 21 percent of net value added in the corporate sector in the last quarter of 2013 to less than 19 percent in the first quarter of 2014. Here’s the picture.
It’s too early to make much of this drop in profit shares. It is also a bit disconcerting that it is all attributable to a drop in the capital consumption adjustment, the difference between accounting depreciation and economic depreciation as measured by the Commerce Department. (In other words, the Commerce Department is showing a larger gap between what firms record for accounting purposes and the actual rate of depreciation of capital.)
Anyhow, with all the appropriate caveats, this may be the first sign that the sharp rise in profit shares in this century is being reversed, or as Gerald Ford once said, our long national nightmare is over.
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