IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v26y2017i2p529-553.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Map of Markups: Why We Observe Mixed Behaviors of Markups

Author

Listed:
  • Seong‐Hoon Kim
  • Seongman Moon

Abstract

This paper proposes an explanation for mixed evidence on the behaviors of markups. The key mechanism consists of two complementary channels through which firms handle uninsurable business losses. One channel is based on cost‐compensating motive, by which firms raise prices to reflect higher losses stochastically associated with higher output levels. The other channel is based on loss‐balancing motive, by which firms lower prices to countervail higher losses stochastically associated with higher output levels. The relative responsiveness of the two channels to a shock depends on each firm's fundamental characteristics and leads to a sharp division of markup cyclicality across sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Seong‐Hoon Kim & Seongman Moon, 2017. "A Map of Markups: Why We Observe Mixed Behaviors of Markups," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 529-553, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:26:y:2017:i:2:p:529-553
    DOI: 10.1111/jems.12193
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12193
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jems.12193?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julio J. Rotemberg & Lawrence H. Summers, 1990. "Inflexible Prices and Procyclical Productivity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 851-874.
    2. Victor Aguirregabiria, 1999. "The Dynamics of Markups and Inventories in Retailing Firms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(2), pages 275-308.
    3. Paul Klemperer, 1995. "Competition when Consumers have Switching Costs: An Overview with Applications to Industrial Organization, Macroeconomics, and International Trade," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(4), pages 515-539.
    4. Eden, Benjamin, 1990. "Marginal Cost Pricing When Spot Markets Are Complete," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1293-1306, December.
    5. Elizabeth J. Warner & Robert B. Barsky, 1995. "The Timing and Magnitude of Retail Store Markdowns: Evidence from Weekends and Holidays," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 321-352.
    6. Jordi Galí, 2008. "Introduction to Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework," Introductory Chapters, in: Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework, Princeton University Press.
    7. Mark Bils, 1989. "Pricing in a Customer Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(4), pages 699-718.
    8. Carlton, Dennis W, 1979. "Contracts, Price Rigidity, and Market Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 1034-1062, October.
    9. Chang, Yongsung & Hornstein, Andreas & Sarte, Pierre-Daniel, 2009. "On the employment effects of productivity shocks: The role of inventories, demand elasticity, and sticky prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 328-343, April.
    10. James M. MacDonald, 2000. "Demand, Information, and Competition: Why Do Food Prices Fall at Seasonal Demand Peaks?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 27-45, March.
    11. James D. Dana Jr., 1998. "Advance-Purchase Discounts and Price Discrimination in Competitive Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(2), pages 395-422, April.
    12. Nicholas C. Petruzzi & Maqbool Dada, 1999. "Pricing and the Newsvendor Problem: A Review with Extensions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(2), pages 183-194, April.
    13. Basu, Susanto & Fernald, John G, 1997. "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 249-283, April.
    14. Lal, Rajiv & Matutes, Carmen, 1994. "Retail Pricing and Advertising Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 345-370, July.
    15. Judith A. Chevalier & Anil K. Kashyap & Peter E. Rossi, 2003. "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 15-37, March.
    16. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1992. "Oligopolistic Pricing and the Effects of Aggregate Demand on Economic Activity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1153-1207, December.
    17. James D. Dana Jr., 1999. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion Under Demand Uncertainty: The Roles of Costly Capacity and Market Structure," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 632-660, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chrysovalantis Amountzias, 2024. "Market power and income disparities: How can firms influence the gap between capital and labor earnings," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(3), pages 861-888, July.
    2. Chrysovalantis Amountzias, 2021. "Markup cyclicality, competition and liquidity constraints: Evidence from a panel VAR analysis," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 3696-3718, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seong-Hoon Kim & Seongman Moon, 2013. "A Risk Map of Markups: Why We Observe Mixed Behaviors of Markups," CDMA Working Paper Series 201409, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.
    2. Marco Cornia & Kristopher S. Gerardi & Adam Hale Shapiro, 2012. "Price Dispersion Over the Business Cycle: Evidence from the Airline Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 347-373, September.
    3. Benjamin Eden, 2018. "Price Dispersion And Demand Uncertainty: Evidence From U.S. Scanner Data," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1035-1075, August.
    4. Etienne Gagnon & David López-Salido, 2020. "Small Price Responses to Large Demand Shocks," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 792-828.
    5. Alexis Antoniades & Sofronis Clerides & Mingzhi Xu, 2023. "Micro‐responses to shocks: pricing, promotion, and entry," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(3), pages 584-615, July.
    6. Raymond Deneckere & James Peck, 2012. "Dynamic Competition With Random Demand and Costless Search: A Theory of Price Posting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(3), pages 1185-1247, May.
    7. Plehn-Dujowich, Jose M., 2008. "On the counter-cyclicality of prices and markups in a Cournot model of entry," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 310-313, May.
    8. Judith A. Chevalier & Anil K. Kashyap & Peter E. Rossi, 2003. "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 15-37, March.
    9. Nakamura, Emi & Steinsson, Jón, 2011. "Price setting in forward-looking customer markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 220-233.
    10. Aviv Nevo & Konstantinos Hatzitaskos, 2005. "Why Does the Average Price of Tuna Fall During Lent?," NBER Working Papers 11572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Yossi Spiegel & Konrad O. Stahl, 2014. "Industry Structure and Pricing over the Business Cycle," CESifo Working Paper Series 4848, CESifo.
    12. Luttmann, Alexander & Gaggero, Alberto A, 2020. "Purchase discounts and travel premiums during holiday periods: Evidence from the airline industry," MPRA Paper 104863, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Holzer, Patrick Sebastian, 2020. "The effect of time-varying factors on promotional activity in the German milk market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    14. Spiegel, Yossi & Stahl, Konrad, 2014. "Industry structure and pricing over the business cycle," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-039, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Li, Chenguang & Sexton, Richard J., 2009. "Impacts of Retailers’ Pricing Strategies for Produce Commodities on Farmer Welfare," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51720, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Eden, Benjamin, 2007. "Inefficient trade patterns: Excessive trade, cross-hauling and dumping," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 175-188, September.
    17. Laura Birg & Anna Goeddeke, 2016. "Christmas Economics—A Sleigh Ride," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1980-1984, October.
    18. Guler, Ali Umut & Misra, Kanishka & Vilcassim, Naufel, 2014. "Countercyclical pricing: A consumer heterogeneity explanation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 343-347.
    19. Saul Lach, 2007. "Immigration and Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 548-587, August.
    20. Timothy Richards, 2007. "A nested logit model of strategic promotion," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 63-91, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:26:y:2017:i:2:p:529-553. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.