ESTIMATING MARK-UPS FROM PLANT-LEVEL DATA -super-*

SERGIO A. D eSOUZA

Journal of Industrial Economics, 2009, vol. 57, issue 2, pages 353-363

Abstract: Typical plant-level data sets do not report quantities. This paper shows that estimating mark-ups (price-cost ratio) in product-differentiated industries using deflated sales to proxy quantity is not appropriate due to unobserved price heterogeneity. This paper presents an econometric model for estimating mark-ups that controls for unobserved prices. The model shows that ignoring price heterogeneity results in mark-up estimates that converge to one, whatever the value of the true price-cost ratio. Estimates obtained using real data are consistent with this result, as they reveal that ignoring price heterogeneity leads to spurious evidence of firms with little or no market power. Copyright 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. and the Editorial Board of The Journal of Industrial Economics.

Date: 2009

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Journal of Industrial Economics is edited by Pierre Regibeau, Yeon-Koo Che, Kenneth Corts, Thomas Hubbard, Patrick Legros and Frank Verboven

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