IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/kondp1/255.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monopolistic competition with pro- and countercyclical pricing

Author

Listed:
  • Zink, Helmut

Abstract

We develop a market model which explains how prices react to short-run demand variations when the number of active price-setting firms is held fixed on its long-run level. We assume that for each firm the average production cost function is U-shaped, that customers are imperfectly informed about the quality of offers, and that customers may search for better offers. For low degrees of market transparency the long-run market outcome exhibits price dispersion with an endogenous finite number of firms. In this case, in the short-run, price mark-ups respond countercyclically to demand variations and productivity is procyclical. In the complementary case of higher degrees of market transparency, in the long-run we have a single-price equilibrium. In that case, in the short-run price mark-ups fall with decreasing demand while productivity diminishes with any deviation of demand from its long-run level.

Suggested Citation

  • Zink, Helmut, 1991. "Monopolistic competition with pro- and countercyclical pricing," Discussion Papers, Series I 255, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:kondp1:255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/68849/1/686868307.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oliver D. Hart, 1985. "Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin: A General Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 529-546.
    2. Beth Allen & Martin Hellwig, 1986. "Bertrand-Edgeworth Oligopoly in Large Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(2), pages 175-204.
    3. George J. Stigler & James K. Kindahl, 1970. "The Behavior of Industrial Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number stig70-1.
    4. Ross, Howard N & Krausz, Joshua, 1986. "Buyers' and Sellers' Prices and Administered Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(3), pages 369-378, August.
    5. Bils, Mark, 1987. "The Cyclical Behavior of Marginal Cost and Price," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 838-855, December.
    6. Robert E. Hall, 1986. "Market Structure and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 17(2), pages 285-338.
    7. Gerard R. Butters, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 465-491.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Zhao Han & Xiaohan Ma & Ruoyun Mao, 2023. "The Role of Dispersed Information in Inflation and Inflation Expectations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 48, pages 72-106, April.
    2. Andrea Vaona, 2016. "A nonparametric panel data approach to the cyclical dynamics of price-cost margins in the fourth Kondratieff wave," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(2), pages 155-170, August.
    3. Sandeep Mazumder, 2011. "The Long-Run Relationship Between Inflation and the Markup in the U.S," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(1), pages 473-484.
    4. Sungki Hong, 2019. "Customer Capital, Markup Cyclicality, and Amplification," 2019 Meeting Papers 959, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Jaimovich, Nir, 2007. "Firm dynamics and markup variations: Implications for sunspot equilibria and endogenous economic fluctuations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 300-325, November.
    6. Federico Etro & Andrea Colciago, 2010. "Endogenous Market Structures and the Business Cycle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(549), pages 1201-1233, December.
    7. Vivien Lewis & Roland Winkler, 2015. "Product Diversity, Demand Structures, And Optimal Taxation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 979-1003, April.
    8. M. Ali Choudhary, 2004. "Connecting People," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0404, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    9. Ines Perez-Soba Aguilar & Elena Marquez de la Cruz & Ana Rosa Martinez-Canete & Alfonso Palacio-Vera, 2006. "Capital Stock and Unemployment: Searching for the Missing Link," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_475, Levy Economics Institute.
    10. Eric T. Swanson, 1999. "Measuring the cyclicality of real wages: how important is aggregation across industries?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-52, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Greg Kaplan & Piotr Zoch, 2020. "Markups, Labor Market Inequality and the Nature of Work," Working Papers 2020-09, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    12. Chirinko, Robert S., 1995. "Nonconvexities, labor hoarding, technology shocks, and procyclical productivity a structural econometric analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1-2), pages 61-98.
    13. Jaimovich, Nir & Floetotto, Max, 2008. "Firm dynamics, markup variations, and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1238-1252, October.
    14. Konopczak, Karolina, 2019. "Modelling cyclical variation in the cost pass-through: evidence from regime-dependent ARDL model," MF Working Papers 36, Ministry of Finance in Poland.
    15. José C. Fariñas & Elena Huergo, 2003. "Profit Margins, Adjustment Costs and the Business Cycle: An Application to Spanish Manufacturing Firms," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(1), pages 49-72, February.
    16. Robert J. Barro & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "Closed and Open Economy Models of Business Cycles with Marked Up and Sticky Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(511), pages 434-456, April.
    17. Helmut Zink, 1993. "Monopolistic competition and the cyclicality of pricing and productivity—A typology of industries," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 109-152, June.
    18. Francisco Silva & Samir Mamadehussene, 2020. "The Equivalence Between Sequential and Simultaneous Firm Decisions," Documentos de Trabajo 541, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    19. Michał Gradzewicz, 2019. "How do savings of different sectors respond to interest rate change?," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, March.
    20. Sungki Hong, 2017. "Customer Capital, Markup Cyclicality, and Amplification," Working Papers 2017-33, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    increasing returns; monopolistic competition; business cycle theory;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    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:zbw:kondp1:255. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwkonde.html .

    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.