Testing the Production Approach to Markup Estimation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Raval, Devesh
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdad002
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2592-2611
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; TRADE; price; POWER; matter; scale; wages; cost

摘要

Under the production approach to markup estimation, any flexible input should recover the markup. I test this implication using manufacturing datasets from Chile, Colombia, India, Indonesia, the U.S., and Southern Europe, as well as store-level data from a major U.S. retailer, and overwhelmingly reject that markups estimated using labour and materials have the same distribution. For every dataset, markups estimated using labour are negatively correlated with markups estimated using materials, exhibit greater dispersion, and have opposite time trends. I continue to find stark differences in markups estimated using energy and non-energy raw materials. Non-neutral productivity differences across firms can explain these findings.