Sales and Markup Dispersion: Quantifying Misallocation
2019/11/12
研討會日期 : 2019-11-12
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Peter Neary
主持人 : Professor Shin-Kun Peng
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Professor Neary received his Ph.D. in Economics at University of Oxford. He is currently a Professor of Economics at University of Oxford. His main research field is international trade theory
演講摘要 : We characterize the analytic relationship between the distributions of two variables linked by a structural model. We then highlight four theoretical applications to models of heterogeneous firms in monopolistic competition. First, we ask which demand functions are consistent with productivity and sales distributions having the same form (whether Pareto, lognormal, or Fr´echet) in the cross section. The answer is a new “CREMR” demand function (Constant Revenue Elasticity of Marginal Revenue). Second, we show that CREMR is also necessary and sufficient for Gibrat’s Law to hold over time. Third, we use our methodology to quantify misallocation at the microeconomic level (both in general and in the special CREMR case). Fourth, we characterize the distribution of markups implied by any assumptions on demand and productivity. Finally, we show in an empirical application using Indian firm-level data on sales and markups that CREMR-based distributions yield a parsimonious fit superior to many widely-used alternatives.
