Customer accumulation, returns to scale, and secular trends

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chiavari, Andrea
• 署名单位: University of Oxford
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2026.103935
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: labor share; PRODUCTIVITY; dispersion; DYNAMICS; search; MARKET; rise

摘要

This paper studies how rising returns to scale contributed to declining business dynamism and increasing markups and expenditures devoted to customer acquisition in the U.S. economy. It introduces a firm dynamics model with heterogeneous markups and customer accumulation based on directed search, in which larger firms gain a competitive edge from higher returns to scale. This makes markets less contestable for new firms and leads to the rise of superstar firms. The model quantitatively accounts for a substantial share of these trends, and the underlying micro-level mechanisms align with empirical evidence.