Does NEEQ’s tiered system enhance corporate labour share？

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the context of improving the multi-level capital market structure and promoting common prosperity, we examine the impact of NEEQ’s (National Equities Exchange and Quotations) tiered system on corporate labour share. We find that the corporate labour share significantly increases when the firm enters the innovative layer from the common layer, which indicates that tiered system can optimise the structure of labour income distribution and facilitate employees to better share the enterprises’ achievements. Our further evidences indicate that (1) this positive relation is more pronounced for firms whose stock liquidity improves more; (2) reducing the cost of capital is an important channel through which the tiered system promotes corporate labour share; and (3) the tiered system visibly affects labour share for firms facing higher financing constraints, meeting lower information transparency, or with a higher complementary effect between labour and capital factors.