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Sales and Markup Dispersion: Theory and Empirics
Author(s) -
Mrázová Monika,
Neary J. Peter,
Parenti Mathieu
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
econometrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 16.7
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1468-0262
pISSN - 0012-9682
DOI - 10.3982/ecta17416
Subject(s) - monopolistic competition , economics , econometrics , price dispersion , log normal distribution , demand curve , pareto principle , price elasticity of demand , productivity , revenue , microeconomics , dispersion (optics) , markup language , distribution (mathematics) , mathematics , statistics , computer science , macroeconomics , mathematical analysis , operations management , physics , accounting , xml , optics , monopoly , operating system
We characterize the relationship between the distributions of two variables linked by a structural model. We then show that, in models of heterogeneous firms in monopolistic competition, this relationship implies a new demand function that we call “CREMR” (Constant Revenue Elasticity of Marginal Revenue). This demand function is the only one that is consistent with productivity and sales distributions having the same form (whether Pareto, lognormal, or Fréchet) in the cross section, and it is necessary and sufficient for Gibrat's Law to hold over time. Among the applications we consider, we use our methodology to characterize misallocation across firms; we derive the distribution of markups implied by any assumptions on demand and productivity; and we show empirically that CREMR‐based markup distributions provide an excellent parsimonious fit to Indian firm‐level data, which in turn allows us to calculate the proportion of firms that are of suboptimal size in the market equilibrium.