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Price Dispersion In U.S. Manufacturing: Implications For The Aggregation Of Products And Firms

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  • Thomas A Abbott III

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of whether products in the U.S. Manufacturing sector sell at a single (common) price, or whether prices vary across producers. Price dispersion is interesting for at least two reasons. First, if output prices vary across producers, standard methods of using industry price deflators lead to errors in measuring real output at the industry, firm, and establishment level which may bias estimates of the production function and productivity growth. Second, price dispersion suggests product heterogeneity which, if consumers do not have identical preferences, could lead to market segmentation and price in excess of marginal cost, thus making the current (competitive) characterization of the Manufacturing sector inappropriate and invalidating many empirical studies. In the course of examining these issues, the paper develops a robust measure of price dispersion as well as new quantitative methods for testing whether observed price differences are the result of differences in product quality. Our results indicate that price dispersion is widespread throughout manufacturing and that for at least one industry, Hydraulic Cement, it is not the result of differences in product quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas A Abbott III, 1992. "Price Dispersion In U.S. Manufacturing: Implications For The Aggregation Of Products And Firms," Working Papers 92-3, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:92-3
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    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/1992/CES-WP-92-03.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Baldwin, John R. Gu, Wulong, 2004. "Innovation, Survival and Performance of Canadian Manufacturing Plants," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2004022e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    2. David Van Dijcke, 2022. "On the Non-Identification of Revenue Production Functions," Papers 2212.04620, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    3. Chad Syverson, 2004. "Market Structure and Productivity: A Concrete Example," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1181-1222, December.
    4. Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & Chad Syverson, 2008. "Reallocation, Firm Turnover, and Efficiency: Selection on Productivity or Profitability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 394-425, March.
    5. Tengying Weng & Tomislav Vukina & Xiaoyong Zheng, 2015. "The Effects of Productvity and Demand-Specific Factors on Plant Survival and Ownership Change in the U.S. Poultry Industry," Working Papers 15-20, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    6. Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2007. "Using Firm Optimization to Evaluate and Estimate Returns to Scale," NBER Working Papers 13666, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Baldwin, John R. Gu, Wulong, 2004. "Innovation, survie et rendement des établissements canadiens de fabrication," Série de documents de recherche sur l'analyse économique (AE) 2004022f, Statistics Canada, Direction des études analytiques.

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