facts in the whole range of economic statistics ”. 6 yet since 1980, corporate profits have risen faster than wages ( chart 6 ). 6 keynes, j. m ( 1939 ) : " relative movements of real wages and output ", the economic journal 49 ( 193 ), pp 34 – 51. norges bank chart 6 labour share. labour costs as a share of gdp. 1 ) selected advanced economies. percent economic perspectives 15 february 2018 1 ) belgium, denmark, finland, france, germany ( data for west germany before 1992 ), ireland, italy, japan, netherlands, portugal, spain, south korea, sweden, switzerland, the uk and the us. gdp−weighted average. sources : european commission, thomson reuters and norges bank technological advances have reduced the relative cost of capital goods. tasks have been taken over by robots and other capital equipment. this probably explains some of the decline in the labour share. 7 the emergence of global technology companies is also reducing the labour share. with broad platforms and vast numbers of users, they dominate the market, which translates into both market power and substantial profits. the winner takes all. a few technology companies stand out by virtue of their size ( chart 7 ). alphabet is one example. 80 percent of the world ’ s web searches are done through its google search engine. 8 another example is amazon. in 2017, the company accounted for 44 percent of all us online retail sales. chart 7 the world ’ s largest listed companies. market capitalisation in billions of usd1 ) apple alphabet microsoft amazon facebook tencent berkshire hathaway jpmorgan icbc johnson & johnson exxonmobil bank of america 1 ) market capitalisation at 9 february 2018. source : bloomberg the decline in the labour share can primarily be explained by the fundamental transformation of the global labour market in recent decades. more countries are participating in global trade, labour mobility has increased, and offshoring production 7 hagelund, k., e. w. nordbø and l. sauvik ( 2017 ) : “ lønnsandelen ” [ the labour share ], aktuell kommentar 9 / 2017, norges bank ( norwegian only ). 8 source : financial times, january 2018 ( https : / / www. ft. com / content / 95d16c88 - f795 - 11e7 - 88f7 - 5465a6ce1a00 ). to low - cost

norway are not very different from the rest of the country. all industries report solid growth. growth appears to be strongest in retail trade and services, while the building and construction sector reports only moderate growth. continued growth is expected, but capacity problems are a constraint on growth in a number of industries. an increasing number of enterprises report that they have limited available capacity. for most enterprises, the labour supply is the most important constraint. investment is expected to continue growing in all industries and in the local government sector. employment is also growing, except in the building and construction industry, where employment growth now appears to have levelled off. enterprises expect appreciably higher wage growth than at the same time last year. enterprises state that higher pay is an important edge in the competition for labour. after a long period of high housing investment and rising prices, activity in the housing market now appears to be slowing. seasonally adjusted, house prices have fallen for four consecutive months. in recent years, house price inflation has been accompanied by strong growth in household debt. credit growth remains high. higher interest rates and falling house prices may lead to slower consumption growth and a higher saving ratio ahead. there are large regional differences in house price developments, but the trend has been the same since year - end 2006. house price inflation is decelerating in all regions, with a 12month decline in house prices in hedmark and oppland and a rate close to zero in trøndelag. the strong rise in house prices has been accompanied by an increase in turnover up to the summer of this year. the stock of homes for sale has varied somewhat in recent years, but since summer 2006 there has been a sharp increase. this may explain some of the decline in house prices in recent months. the present economic expansion differs from previous upturns in that inflation has remained low so far despite strong growth and increasing capacity utilisation. there are several reasons for this. first, low import prices and high prices for our commodity exports have improved norway ’ s terms of trade appreciably. prices for oil and gas, freight, fish, industrial commodities and engineering products have increased considerably. moreover, norwegian importers have gained access to new markets in central europe and asia which offer substantially cheaper consumer goods. norway ’ s terms of trade have improved by about 40 per cent since 2002. recently, however the terms of trade have become slightly less favourable. this is partly due to weaker prices for norwegian exports,