Time Use and the Efficiency of Heterogeneous Markups

Brian Albrecht, Thomas Phelan and Nick Pretnar

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: A recent literature has provided empirical evidence that markups are increasing and are heterogeneous across firms. In standard monopolistic competition models, such heterogeneity implies inefficiency even in the presence of free entry. We enrich the standard model of monopolistic competition with heterogeneous firms to incorporate off-market time use that is non-separable with market consumption into the consumer problem. Within this framework the constancy of equilibrium markups is neither sufficient nor necessary for efficiency. Whether or not the competitive level of production and market concentration of firms are efficient depends on the degree to which consumption time and market goods are complements or substitutes. Such inefficiencies are the result of time use being misallocated toward home production at the expense of market production.

Keywords: monopolistic competition; markups; efficiency; time use; home production; elasticity of substitution; concentration; selection; love for variety; heterogeneous firms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 D4 D6 L1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-08-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind and nep-reg
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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/118172/1/markups_time_RESTUD.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Time Use and the Efficiency of Heterogeneous Markups (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:118172

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