This paper studies the importance of firm-level price markup dynamics for business cycle fluctuations. Using state-of-the-art IO techniques to measure the behavior of markups over the business cycle at the firm level, I find that markups are countercyclical with an average elasticity of -1.1...

We use detailed micro data to document a causal response of local retail price to changes in house prices, with elasticities of 15%-20% across housing booms and busts. Notably, these price responses are largest in zip codes with many homeowners, and non-existent in zip codes with mostly renters....

Output and input market distortions manifest as wedges in the firm's first order conditions. The production approach to markup estimation recovers the markup wedge using the output elasticity for a variable and undistorted input. We show that using the revenue elasticity for any variable input,...

We characterize the dispersion of firm-level productivity and demand shocks over the business cycle using Swedish microdata including prices and analyse the consequences for firms and the aggregate economy. Demand dispersion increases by more than productivity dispersion in recessions....

The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of competition, both internal and external, and of the business cycle on monopolistic markups in the Polish economy. The results show that there are significant markups in several sectors of the economy which complies with earlier estimations by the...

We characterize the dispersion of firm-level productivity and demand shocks using Swedish microdata including prices and utilization and analyse the consequences for firms and the aggregate economy. Demand dispersion increases by more than TFPQ dispersion in recessions. Productivity shocks pass...

We construct a model of a financially constrained firm making pricing and investment decisions. The firm operates in a market where customers respond slowly to price changes and there are implementation lags in investment (time to build). Our model implies that the markup over marginal cost is...

Firms’ market power, measured by markups, has risen substantially and unequally across sectors. To evaluate the implications of these trends for monetary non-neutrality, we develop a quantitative menu cost model that covers multiple sectors with heterogeneous degrees of market competition. Two...

We study business cycles with cyclical returns to scale. Contrary to tightly parameterized production functions (Cobb-Douglas and Constant Elasticity of Substitution), we empirically identify strong input complementarity that leads to procyclical returns to scale. We therefore propose a flexible...

In this paper, we study a new channel to explain firms' price setting behavior. We propose that uncertainty about factor prices has a positive effect on markups. We show theoretically that firms with higher shares of inputs with volatile prices set higher markups. We use the Bartik shift-share...