Market Regulations, Prices, and Productivity

Gilbert Cette (1, 2) , Jimmy Lopez (3, 1) , Jacques Mairesse (4, 5, 1)

1 Centre de recherche de la Banque de France
2 GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille
3 LEDi - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dijon
4 CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique
5 UNU-MERIT - UNU-MERIT

This study is, to our knowledge, the first attempt to infer the consequences on productivity entailed by anticompetitive regulations in product and labor markets through their impacts on production prices and wages. Results show that changes in production prices and wages at country*industry levels are informative about the creation of rents impeding productivity in different ways and to different extents. A simulation based on OECD regulation indicators suggests that nearly all countries could expect sizeable gains in multifactor productivity from the implementation of large structural reform programs changing anticompetitive regulation practices on product and labor markets.

Mots clés: Productivity; market imperfections; anti-competitive regulations; rents

Domaines: Economies et finances

Gilbert Cette, Jimmy Lopez, Jacques Mairesse. Market Regulations, Prices, and Productivity. American Economic Review: papers & proceedings, 2016, 106 (5), pp.104-108. ⟨10.1257/aer.p20161025⟩. ⟨hal-01344484⟩