This analysis proposes new measures of rent creation (mark-up) and workers' share of rents on cross-country-industry panel data. We confirm their relevance on an ‘institution and growth' framework. First, we find that anti-competitive non-manufacturing regulations affect positively rent creation, whereas employment protection legislation boosts wages, particularly for low skill workers. However, these wage increases are offset by a negative impact on hours worked, leading to a non-significant impact on workers' share of rents. Second, using the regulation indicators as instruments, we find that rent creation and workers' share of rents have both substantial negative impacts on Total Factor Productivity.