A reasonable distribution of labor income is an inherent requirement for achieving high-quality common prosperity. As the primary units of economic activity and the micro-foundation of value creation, enterprises are a key link in realizing fair distribution of factor income. In recent years, relevant research has begun to focus on the determinants of firms’ labor income share, yet few studies have systematically examined this issue from the perspective of shareholders’ individual behavioral characteristics.
This paper takes the share pledge of listed companies as the research context and examines how controlling shareholders’ personal financial decisions affect enterprise labor income distribution. The findings show that: (1) controlling shareholders’ share pledge reduces the firm’s labor income share by an average of 4.41%, and for each standard deviation increase in pledge scale, the labor income share decreases by an average of 2.33%; (2) declines in wage rate and employment scale are the main channels through which share pledge lowers labor income share; (3) the baseline results are more pronounced in firms facing higher control transfer risks and lower labor adjustment costs; (4) government bailout funds effectively mitigate the adverse impact of share pledge on labor income share. These findings provide a new perspective for understanding how shareholders’ personal financial behaviors affect corporate income distribution and human capital, while providing useful references for government policy on capital market regulation policies and common prosperity promotion.
Compared with existing research, this study contributes in three main aspects. First, it extends the research on the determinants of labor income share. From the perspective of shareholders’ individual financial decisions, it reveals how controlling shareholders’ share pledge penetrates corporate operations through their personal financial risks and thereby reshapes labor factor income distribution.
By linking shareholder behavior with labor income share, the study deepens the understanding of how internal corporate governance mechanisms influence labor income distribution. Second, it enriches the literature on the economic consequences of controlling shareholders’ share pledge by extending their impact to the labor market. Existing studies have rarely explored the impact of share pledges on labor and its income distribution. By starting from labor’s central role in enterprise income distribution, this paper fills this gap and enables a more comprehensive assessment of share pledge consequences. Third, it incorporates the institutional context of government “bailout funds” into the analytical framework, further expanding research on both share pledge effects and bailout policy outcomes. The findings show that government bailouts significantly alleviate the negative impact of share pledge on labor income share, providing new empirical evidence of the positive role of such policies.By linking shareholders’ individual behavioral characteristics with enterprise income distribution decisions, this paper reveals the potential adverse effects of shareholders’ personal financial risks on common prosperity at the firm level. This paper not only fills a gap in the literature but also provides important implications for regulators in understanding share pledge risks and their impact on labor income distribution within firms. In policy terms, supervision should be strengthened for enterprises with high pledge ratios and control transfer risks to prevent excessive transmission of shareholder financial risks to employees. Meanwhile, the labor rights protection system should be improved to ensure that firms maintain reasonable labor income distribution under financial pressure. In addition, the design of bailout funds should be optimized to enhance their targeting and transmission effectiveness in mitigating the negative effects of share pledges. These policy measures will help maintain capital market stability while safeguarding labor’s rightful position in income distribution, thereby providing institutional support for achieving high-quality development and common prosperity.
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