L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
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The Scale and Scope of Online Retail
This paper studies the growth of online retail over the period 1999–2012, using confidential firm-product-level data for Canada. The revenue of online retailers is decomposed into the contributions of product scope (the number of product categories) and product scale (average revenue per product category). -
Trends in Firm Entry and New Entrepreneurship in Canada
Recently released data show downward trends for both the firm entry rate and the rate of new entrepreneurship since the early 1980s in Canada. This paper documents these trends and discusses potential explanations. -
The Endogenous Relative Price of Investment
This paper takes a full-information model-based approach to evaluate the link between investment-specific technology and the inverse of the relative price of investment. The two-sector model presented includes monopolistic competition where firms can vary the markup charged on their product depending on the number of firms competing. -
On the Importance of Sales for Aggregate Price Flexibility
Macroeconomists have traditionally ignored the behavior of temporary price markdowns (“sales”) by retailers. Although sales are common in the micro price data, they are assumed to be unrelated to macroeconomic phenomena and generally filtered out. -
Public/Private Transitions and Firm Financing
A large body of empirical literature investigates differences in financing structures across firms. Private firms’ financing receives little attention due to the lack of data. -
Market Structure and Cost Pass-Through in Retail
We examine the extent to which vertical and horizontal market structure can together explain incomplete retail pass-through. -
The Sensitivity of Producer Prices to Exchange Rates: Insights from Micro Data
This paper studies the sensitivity of Canadian producer prices to the Canada-U.S. exchange rate. Using a unique product-level price data set, we estimate and analyze the impact of movements in the exchange rate on both domestic and export producer prices. -
Exchange Rate Fluctuations, Plant Turnover and Productivity
In a small open economy fluctuations in the real exchange rate can affect plant turnover, and thus aggregate productivity, by altering the makeup of plants that populate the market. An appreciation of the local currency increases the level of competition in the domestic market as import competition intensifies and export opportunities shrink, forcing less productive plants from the market and compelling new entrants to be more competitive than they otherwise would have been. -
Firm Size and Productivity
This paper examines the relationship between firm size and productivity. In contrast to previous studies, this paper offers evidence of the relationship not only from manufacturing firms, but from non-manufacturing firms as well. -
Markups in Canada: Have They Changed and Why?
Many empirical studies have examined the cyclical nature of the markup ratio. Until recently, few have attempted to ascertain the changes in the markup over a longer time horizon.