Monopolistic Competition Model Research Articles

Misallocation in Chinese Manufacturing and Services: A Variable Markup Approach

AbstractCross‐country comparison reveals an unusually small service sector in China. Using firm‐level data from China's 2008 economic census, we find two facts that speak to a novel mechanism of misallocation within service and between manufacturing and service sectors. First, compared with the manufacturing sector, there are more state‐owned enterprises and fewer entrants in the service sector. Second, markups increase with firm size, and the increase is more dramatic among service firms. We interpret these facts through the lens of a monopolistic competition model with heterogeneous firms and variable markups. A multisector model shows a new channel that translates asymmetric barriers to entry across sectors into sectoral markup differences, which in turn cause sectoral misallocation. Quantitative analysis shows that when reducing entry barriers to service firms to the extent observed for manufacturing firms, the model predicts a 12‐percentage‐point increase in the service employment share.

Protection for sale under monopolistic competition: Beyond the CES

We extend the protection for sale model of Grossman and Helpman (1994) by introducing a general model of monopolistic competition with variable markups and incomplete pass-through. We show that the structure of protection emerging in the political equilibrium not only depends on the weight attached by the government to consumer welfare when making its policy decision, but also on the degree of market power of firms and on the terms-of-trade variations due to the degree of pass-through. Our results highlight the importance of preferences in shaping the structure of protection and are consistent with the occurring of protectionism also in unorganized industries.

Geography, competition, and optimal multilateral trade policy

How should multilateral trade policy be designed in a world in which countries differ in terms of market access and technology, and firms with market power differ in terms of productivity? We answer this question in a model of monopolistic competition in which variable markups increasing in firm size are a key source of misallocation across firms and countries. We use ‘disadvantaged’ to refer to countries with smaller market size, worse state of technology (in terms of higher innovation and production costs), and worse geography (in terms of more remoteness from other countries). We show that, in a global welfare perspective, optimal multilateral trade policy should: promote the sales of low cost firms to all countries, but especially to disadvantaged ones; trim the sales of high cost firms to all countries, but especially to disadvantaged ones; reduce firm entry in all countries, but especially in disadvantaged ones. This would not only restore efficiency but also reduce welfare inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged countries if their differences in market size, state of technology and geography are large enough.

Product Differentiation, Competitive Toughness, and Intertemporal Substitution

AbstractStandard measures of competitive toughness fail to capture the fact that, as consumers optimize intertemporally, firms operating today compete with (as yet non‐existent) businesses, which will be started tomorrow. We develop a two‐tier constant elasticity of substitution (CES) model of dynamic monopolistic competition in which the impact of product differentiation on the market outcome depends crucially on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS). The degree of product differentiation per se fails to serve as a meaningful indicator of competitive toughness: what matters is its cross‐effect with EIS. We also extend the model to the case of non‐CES preferences in order to capture variable mark‐ups.

Welfare analysis of uniform entry tax in a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous industries

This paper examines whether uniform entry taxes across all industries can improve welfare in a monopolistic competition model with multiple groups of differentiated goods, which vary in parameters including their elasticity of substitution and taste for variety. The results show that even if taste for variety is high and monopoly power is weak in some industries, the uniform tax rate on entries across all industries can improve welfare when the weighted average of taste for variety over all industries is low and when the weighted average of the Lerner index of monopoly power over all industries is high.

Quality Matters: Monopolistic Competition with Heterogeneous Consumers

The paper builds a two-sector monopolistic competition model featuring multi-product firms and heterogeneous consumers endowed with a Cobb–Douglas utility nesting a generalized CES function. In contrast to the standard CES, the generalized CES function includes both the love of variety and the love for product quality, which makes it possible to distinguish consumers differing in their product quality perception. The industrial sector encompasses firms producing differentiated products of varied quality, targeting a certain type of consumer. In such a case, firms set the price and quality for a particular product so as to maximize their profits, while consumers find the optimum price-quality combination, which may be different for groups of consumers having different preferences. The model allows one to derive the demand functions of heterogeneous consumers for goods of different quality and makes it possible to analyze different strategies of firms in their choice of the optimal price-quality ratio for their products. It also allows the formulation of conditions for screening in the case of incomplete information about the type of consumers. The main difference between the equations for screening in the model of monopolistic competition and the standard screening models in theory of contracts lies in the absence of individual rationality restrictions in the monopolistically competitive setting, where only the incentive compatibility is taken into account for both groups of consumers. As a result, in the absence of additional restrictions on the part of the regulatory authorities, the screening procedure in the monopolistic competition setting leads to a decrease in welfare for less affluent consumers.

Geography, Competition, and Optimal Multilateral Trade Policy

How should multilateral trade policy be designed in a world in which countries differ in terms of market access and technology, and firms with market power differ in terms of productivity? We answer this question in a model of monopolistic competition in which variable markups increasing in firm size are a key source of misallocation across firms and countries. We use `disadvantaged' to refer to countries with smaller market size, worse state of technology (in terms of higher innovation and production costs), and worse geography (in terms of more remoteness from other countries). We show that, in a global welfare perspective, optimal multilateral trade policy should: promote the sales of low cost firms to all countries, but especially to disadvantaged ones; trim the sales of high cost firms to all countries, but especially to disadvantaged ones; reduce firm entry in all countries, but especially in disadvantaged ones. This would not only restore efficiency but also reduce welfare inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged countries if their differences in market size, state of technology and geography are large enough.

Intra-Industry Trade, Consumer Demand and Wage Inequality

Numerous studies [1] [2] [3] [4] have shown that automation and college education may be a bigger contributor to wage-inequality than international trade. Most of these models of trade focus on “comparative-advantage” based trade (i.e. trade in different products). Although much of world-trade is “intra-industry” (i.e. trade broadly in the same industry) in nature, relatively fewer studies have examined the relationship between wage-inequality and intra-industry trade. This study examines the relationship between intra-industry trade and wage-inequality, using a two-sector model of monopolistic competition. Unlike previous research, this study examines this relationship through a lens that has not been explored much in the previous literature: differences in consumer demand, which can arise from factors such as demographic differences (e.g. whether a population is young or aging) between trade partners. My model suggests that: 1) intra-industry trade may be associated with wage-inequality between two sectors in the same country, 2) the magnitude of wage-inequality may depend on the differences in consumer demand in the countries that engage in international trade, and 3) wage-inequality can arise between sectors even if all workers have similar skills to begin with. These preliminary results may have some interesting implications for future research in the international trade literature.

Competition in the banking sector in Russia

The Russian banking sector is composed of almost 500 banks, but does it mean it is competitive? The aim of the study is to determine the scale of competition in the Russian banking sector in the light of the undertaken reforms, whose goal has been to reinforce banks’ and to limit their number. The analysis covering the period 2010–2015 was based on the financial statements of banks (balance sheets and profit and loss accounts) drawn from BankScope. The author examined the indicators of concentration and computed non-structural measures of competition, then comparing the scale of competition on the Russian banking services market with three emerging economies of a similar size: Brazil, India and China. The applied unstructured measures of competition (H statistics, Lerner index and Boone index) yielded results indicating that the type of competition on the Russian market of banking services could be defined as monopolistic. The structures of the market for banking services of the three other examined countries also correspond to the model of monopolistic competition, but nevertheless they allow more competition than the Russian one.

Environmental regulation and love for variety

AbstractUsing a model of monopolistic competition, we examine the relationship between intra‐industry trade and environmental regulation. The decisions on emission standards set by each country show strong strategic interactions. In closed economies regulations act as strategic substitutes, and in equilibrium there is under‐regulation relative to the cooperative outcome. Trade liberalization may lead to stricter or laxer environmental standards, depending on the consumers’ preference for product variety. In addition, we show that with open trade environmental regulations may act as strategic complements and countries may set environmental standards that are as strict (or stricter) than those in the cooperative outcome.

Network structure, equilibrium and dynamics in a monopolistically competitive economy

Although network theory has been busy to emphasize the role of connection structures in shaping aggregate level phenomena of complex systems, there are only few attempts in economic modeling which try to build this dimension into the analysis. Macroeconomic models typically build on complete connectedness among economic actors (frictionless flow of information, perfect information on prices), thus these models typically oversee the possible effects of complex, incomplete network structures among economic agents on emergent macroeconomic phenomena. In this paper we try to fill this gap by incorporating possibly incomplete relationship structures between economic actors in a standard model of monopolistic competition and then analyze the effect of different network structures on the equilibrium and dynamic properties of the model. Analytical and simulation results of the model show that incomplete connectedness give rise to deadweight loss, shrinking output below the level observed in standard models with complete networks. Also, the dynamics of link formation has an effect on the steady state of the economy as well as on its response to shocks.

Monopolistic competition with investments in productivity

We consider a monopolistic competition model with the endogenous choice of technology. We study the impact of technological innovation on the equilibrium and socially optimal variables. We obtained the comparative statics of the equilibrium and socially optimal solutions with respect to the technological innovation parameter and utility level parameter.

Comparison of Welfare Gains in the Armington, Krugman and Melitz Models: Insights Based on a Structural Gravity Approach

How large are the estimated welfare gains from changes in trade costs in a Melitz based trade model compared with models based on Armington and Krugman? We examine model features and scenarios that are important for policy that are unexamined in the literature. Starting with the stylized model of Akolakis et al. (2012), we produce fourteen new results by progressively introducing model structures and scenarios that are relevant to international trade policy analysis. We show that there are policies or model features that result in global welfare gains in the monopolistic competition models that are several multiples of the Armington model results and one relevant policy that leads to opposite signs; on the other hand, we identify other extensions of model features that have very small impacts. In multi-sector, comparative static models, we are the first to compare the welfare impacts of market structure, while holding the trade responses constant based on structural gravity estimates. In response to global changes in trade costs, in all models except a stylized one-sector model, the global welfare changes are largest in absolute value in Melitz and smallest in Armington; and the Krugman model captures between 75 and 95 percent of the additional gains (losses) above the Armington model that are estimated by the Melitz model. We construct parameters that facilitate intuitive explanations of the general pattern of results and for reversed welfare rankings that occur for individual regions.

Protection for Sale with Price Interactions and Incomplete Pass-Through

We extend the protection for sale model of Grossman and Helpman (1994) by introducing a general model of monopolistic competition with variable markups and incomplete pass-through. We show that the structure of protection emerging in the political equilibrium not only depends on the weight attached by the government to consumer welfare when making its policy decision, but also on the degree of market power of firms and on the terms-of-trade variations due to the degree of pass-through. Our results highlight the importance of demand characteristics in shaping the structure of protection and are consistent with the occurring of protectionism also in unorganized industries.

How market interactions shape the city structure

We develop a spatial monopolistic competition model in which city structure formation is entirely driven by market interactions. When preferences and transport costs are described by real analytic functions, equilibrium land-use patterns are segregated. We completely solve the case of quasilinear quadratic preferences and quadratic transport costs. The city is monocentric when firms are few, duocentric when they are neither too few nor too many, and involves a residential central area bordered by two commercial clusters when firms are many. In the long-run equilibrium, the city size and its spatial structure may change swiftly in response to tiny variations in the opportunity cost of land. Our model captures spatial price dispersion without involving any search frictions.

Corporate Tax Rates, Allocative Efficiency, and Aggregate Productivity

This paper quantifies the impact of effective corporate tax rates on aggregate total factor productivity (TFP). Using Chilean manufacturing data, we document a large dispersion in the effective tax rate faced by firms and a mass of firms facing a 0 percent tax rate. We incorporate these findings into a standard monopolistic competition model with effective corporate tax rates. We find that eliminating corporate tax rates increases TFP between 4 and 11 percent. We consider counterfactual policies in which all firms face the same tax rate and find a monotonically decreasing relationship between the level of the tax rate and TFP.

Applicability of agglomeration to tourism economics

This study examines the applicability of the agglomeration effect to tourism economics. As such, we test the hypothesis that tourists preferences include a “love of variety.” To test the hypothesis, we propose a theoretical model of tourists’ destination choices based on the Dixit–Stiglitz model of monopolistic competition, and use regional data on Japanese tourists for the empirical analysis. Here, we define the number of genres as the variety of tourism goods. The results show that the number of genres offered by destinations affects tourists’ destination choices. In other words, tourists’ preferences exhibit a love of variety.

Environmental regulation and intra-industry trade

ABSTRACTThe paper analyses complex interactions between intra-industry trade (IIT) and environment by extending Krugman's model of monopolistic competition and trade. It is found that an increase in exogenous environmental tax by a country leads to a fall in its output (the scale effect) and aggregate pollution, and an increase in its number of varieties (the selection effect). With IIT, if Home is a net exporter, an increase in its environmental stringency leads to a negative scale effect, which reduces its export demand and raises its import demand. In contrast, a positive selection effect reduces its import demand. However, the first-order scale effect on exports dominates the second-order effect on imports, implying a rise in Home's share of IIT with Foreign. The opposite holds true when Home is a net importer. Furthermore, the impact of a rise in environmental tax on aggregate welfare comprises the following counteracting effects: a negative scale effect, a positive selection effect, a lower level of aggregate pollution and a higher environmental tax revenue in autarky, and two additional effects, namely, changes in the level of exports and imports, under free trade. The overall change in aggregate welfare, in both autarky and free trade, is in general ambiguous.

Heterogeneity of consumer preferences and trade patterns in a monopolistically competitive setting

The paper considers a two-sector two-country trade model of monopolistic competition featuring the heterogeneity of consumer preferences and incomes within and across countries. The incorporation of heterogeneity into a monopolistic competition setting is achieved by assuming a nested Cobb–Douglas and CES utility function exhibiting both country and sector-specific consumer tastes and expenditure shares on manufacturing and traditional goods. The key question analyzed in the paper is how consumer heterogeneity affects the home bias of trade in different countries. The key finding here is that the heterogeneity in tastes and incomes of consumers can provide a substantial influence on degree of home bias in trade but only in combination with high transportation costs.

Intersectoral Markup Divergence

We develop a general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition with a traded and a non-traded sector. Using a broad class of homothetic preferences—that generate variable markups, display a simple behavior of their elasticity of substitution, and nest the ces as a limiting case—we show that trade liberalization: (i) reduces domestic markups and increases imported markups in the traded sector; (ii) increases markups in the non-traded sector; and (iii) increases firm sizes in both sectors. Thus, while domestic and export markups in the traded sector converge across countries, markups diverge across sectors within countries. The negative welfare effects of higher markups and less consumption diversity in the non-traded sector dampen the positive welfare effects of lower markups and greater diversity in the traded sector.