Markup and Cost Dispersion across Firms: Direct Evidence from Producer Surveys in Pakistan
通过直接调查巴基斯坦足球生产商，发现加价比成本更离散，且大企业加价和成本更高，原因在于使用更高质量投入和更高加价率。
Researchers typically invoke theoretical assumptions to estimate mark-ups. Instead, we directly obtain mark-ups by surveying Pakistani soccer-ball producers. We document six facts: (i) Mark-ups are more dispersed than costs; (ii) Mark-ups and costs increase with firm size; (iii) The mark-up elasticity with respect to size exceeds the cost elasticity; (iv) Costs increase with size because larger firms use higher-quality inputs; (v) Larger firms charge higher mark-ups because they have higher production shares of high-quality balls that carry higher mark-ups, and because they charge higher mark-ups conditional on ball type; (vi) Correlations suggest marketing efforts are important for generating higher mark-ups.