Stand in the wind: Market power reformation during uncertain periods

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Authors
Wang, Heng
Wei, Siqi
Zhu, Xiaoyang
Advisors
Issue Date
2023-03-01
Type
Article
Keywords
Economic policy uncertainty , Markup , Market concentration , Local projection
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Citation
Wang, H., Wei, S., & Zhu, X. (2023). Stand in the wind: Market power reformation during uncertain periods. International Review of Economics & Finance, 84, 12-28. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iref.2022.10.026
Abstract

Economic policy uncertainty affects firm dynamics and profitability, and thus imposes an impact on firm markups and market power. Using quarterly data of the U.S. publicly listed firms over 1985Q1 to 2020Q3, this paper empirically shows a decline of firm markups under an uncertain environment. However, the decrease in average markup does not necessarily imply an increase in market competition due to the heterogeneous effects among firms. Specifically, an uncertain environment seems to advantage larger and more innovative firms compared with smaller or less innovative firms, indicating a disproportionate distribution of resource and market power reformation. We further show that the within industry markup dispersion, as well as the market concentration, increases given one standard deviation increase of economic policy uncertainty.

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Publisher
Elsevier Inc.
Journal
Book Title
Series
International Review of Economics & Finance
Volume 84, No. 12
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
1059-0560
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