X < back
X
Search
Home/Seminar

英文首页

Trade, Markups, and Consumer Welfare: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Industry

2024-03-22

Time: 10:00 am- 11:30 am, Mar. 22nd, 2024

Speaker: Xiaochen Xie

(Renmin University of China)

Venue: 359s, Overseas Exchange Center, Peking University

Platform: Zoom

Meeting ID: 994 5991 6531

Passcode: inse

 

Abstract:

This study investigates how trade policies impact markups and consumer welfare. Elevated trade barriers affect markups via cost and competition mechanisms. Less competitive markets lead to markup increases (competition), while higher delivery costs cause imported goods to raise prices less than the cost hike to counter demand decline, reducing markups (cost). Utilizing data from the smartphone markets of 40 major countries, we build a supply and demand model where both firms' product portfolios and pricing strategies are endogenous. Our counterfactual analysis indicates that the tariff effect on markups depends on imported goods share. Furthermore, cost, more than competition, significantly shapes the markup change. Finally, we highlight the importance of considering trade policy-induced markup alterations on welfare, challenging constant markup assumptions in canonical models.

 

Speaker:

 

 

Professor Xiaochen Xie is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Renmin University of China. His main research areas are Public Finance, Trade, Industrial Organizations and Urban Economics. His work has been published in Economic Policy, China Economic Review, and other academic journals. His working papers include “Export Dynamics: Evidence from the Global Mobile Phone Industry”, “Re-exploring Markups and the Gains from International Trade: Evidence from the Smartphone Industry” and so on. He received his Ph.D. in economics from The Pennsylvania State University in 2021.