Ein einfaches Verfahren zur Berücksichtigung heterogener Preisbildung und Marktmacht auf unvollkommenen Gütermärkten in Produktivitätsschätzungen

This paper integrates a generalized monopolistic competition model that states consumer preferences for goods' variety and, hence, heterogeneous price setting behavior into the familiar Cobb-Douglas production function approach. Neglecting the fact of incomplete markets and heterogeneous price setting leads to biased estimates of factor elasticities. Nevertheless, the respective bias can be eliminated, if two additional variable are considered in the production function: a) production volume at the sector level and b) the firm's market share. This method is applied to the manufacturing sector. In general and for consumer goods industries, the empirical results suggest the application of the developed method into productivity estimates.