Market Power and Innovation in the Intangible Economy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: De Ridder, Maarten
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20201079
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 199-251
• 关键词: labor share; information-technology; interest-rates; UNITED-STATES; GROWTH; PRODUCTIVITY; markups; returns; decline; entrepreneurship

摘要

This paper offers a unified explanation for the slowdown of productivity growth, the decline in business dynamism, and the rise of market power. Using a quantitative framework, I show that the rise of intangible inputs, such as software, can explain these trends. Intangibles reduce marginal costs and raise fixed costs, which gives firms with high -intangible adoption a competitive advantage, in turn deterring other firms from entering. I structurally estimate the model on French and US micro data. After initially boosting productivity, the rise of intangibles causes a decline in productivity growth, consistent with the empirical trends observed since the mid -1990s. (JEL D22, D24, E23, L11, O31, O47)