International Shocks, Variable Markups, and Domestic Prices
利用比利时制造业微观数据，估计企业价格对竞争对手价格变化的反应弹性为0.4，对自身成本冲击的反应弹性为0.6，并发现小企业无战略互补性而大企业有强互补性，这有助于解释汇率传递不完全。
Abstract How strong are strategic complementarities in price setting across firms? In this article, we provide a direct empirical estimate of firms’ price responses to changes in competitor prices. We develop a general theoretical framework and an empirical identification strategy, taking advantage of a new micro-level dataset for the Belgian manufacturing sector. We find strong evidence of strategic complementarities, with a typical firm adjusting its price with an elasticity of 0.4 in response to its competitors’ price changes and with an elasticity of 0.6 in response to its own cost shocks. Furthermore, we find evidence of substantial heterogeneity in these elasticities across firms. Small firms exhibit no strategic complementarities in price setting and complete cost pass-through. In contrast, large firms exhibit strong strategic complementarities, responding to both competitor price changes and their own cost shocks with roughly equal elasticities of around 0.5. We show that this pattern of heterogeneity in markup variability across firms is important for explaining the aggregate markup response to international shocks and the observed low exchange rate pass-through into domestic prices.