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Energy, Inflation and Market Power: Excess Pass-Through in France

Author

Listed:
  • Axelle Arquié
  • Malte Thie

Abstract

We explore how, in the French manufacturing sector, producer prices vary with market power during a severe episode of energy price hikes (between January 2020 and February 2023). Our work provides some empirical evidence in favor of a role for firms' market power in explaining inflation, and in favor of the "sellers' inflation" hypothesis (Weber and Wasner 2023): in less competitive sectors, firms could use the energy price hike to increase their prices more than warranted by actual changes in costs. Using a rich dataset on French manufacturing firms' balance sheets, we first estimate markups at the firm-level, and aggregate them at the sectoral level. We then study the response of the producer price index (PPI) to a change in spot energy prices, depending on average market power within sectors. We show that, in sectors with higher markups, prices increase relatively more: in the least competitive sector, firms pass through up to 110% of the energy shock, implying an excess pass-through of 10 percentage points. In addition, we find that the association between markup and pass-through is even higher when markup dispersion is low, consistent with the argument that firms engage in price hikes when they expect their competitors to do the same.

Suggested Citation

  • Axelle Arquié & Malte Thie, 2023. "Energy, Inflation and Market Power: Excess Pass-Through in France," Working Papers 2023-16, CEPII research center.
    • Handle: RePEc:cii:cepidt:2023-16
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Etienne de L'Estoile & Mathilde Salin, 2024. "Who Takes the Land? Quantifying the Use of Built-Up Land by French Economic Sectors to Assess Their Vulnerability to the No Net Land Take Policy," Working papers 941, Banque de France.
    2. Ciambezi, Leonardo & Guerini, Mattia & Napoletano, Mauro & Roventini, Andrea, 2025. "Accounting for the multiple sources of inflation: An agent-based model investigation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    3. Katia Gallegos Torres & Jakob Lehr, 2026. "The Labor Market Impact of the Energy Crisis: Evidence from Germany," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_730, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    4. Memmen, Marvin & Ipsen, Leonhard & Schulz-Gebhard, Jan, 2025. "Sellers' inflation, price dispersion and substitutability: Schumpeter meets Lerner," BERG Working Paper Series 209, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    5. Ferreira, Vicente & Abreu, Alexandre & Louçã, Francisco, 2025. "The rise and fall of inflation in the Euro Area (2021-2024): A heterodox perspective," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 103-110.
    6. Weber, Isabella M. & Wasner, Evan & Lang, Markus & Braun, Benjamin & van ’t Klooster, Jens, 2025. "Implicit coordination in sellers’ inflation: How cost shocks facilitate price hikes," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 690-712.
    7. Weber, Isabella & Wasner, Evan & Lang, Markus & Braun, Benjamin & Klooster, Jens van’t, 2025. "Implicit coordination in sellers’ inflation: how cost shocks facilitate price hikes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 128231, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Kremer, Elise & Reissl, Severin & Fierro, Luca E. & Emmerling, Johannes & Lamperti, Francesco & Roventini, Andrea, 2025. "Energy price shocks in the European Union: Macroeconomic impacts, distributional effects and policy responses," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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