Using Empirical Marginal Cost to Measure Market Power in the Us Economy
Using Empirical Marginal Cost to Measure Market Power in the Us Economy
复制标题
使用经验边际成本衡量美国经济中的市场力量
DOI：
10.3386/w25251
复制
发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
R. Hall
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. Hall
在卖方意识到提高产量会压低价格的情况下，就会产生市场力量。在具有市场力的利润最大化均衡中，价格超过边际成本。勒纳指数-价格减去边际成本与价格的比率-是一种被广泛接受的市场力量衡量标准。衡量边际成本是一项挑战。本文发展并应用了一种直接的经验方法-边际成本是指观察到的成本变化与观察到的产出变化的比率。由于边际成本是偏导数，这两个变化都需要根据其他变化来源进行调整。因此，边际成本是(1)与投入价格变化无关的成本变化与(2)与生产率变化无关的产出变化的比率。我为这一指标开发了60个Klems行业的数据。我发现典型的勒纳指数为0.15。勒纳指数在1988年至2015年期间温和增长。
Market power arises in the case where a seller is aware that raising output will depress price. In the profit-maximizing equilibrium with market power, price exceeds marginal cost. The Lerner index---the ratio of price less marginal cost to the price---is a widely accepted measure of market power. Measuring marginal cost is a challenge. This paper develops and applies a direct empirical approach---marginal cost is measured as the ratio of the observed change in cost to the observed change in output. Because marginal cost is a partial derivative, both changes need to be adjusted for other sources of change. Thus marginal cost is the ratio of (1) the change in cost not associated with changes in input prices to (2) the change in output not associated with productivity change. I develop data for the 60 KLEMS industries for this measure. I find a typical Lerner index of 0.15. Lerner indexes grew moderately between 1988 and 2015.