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Energy Prices, Pass-Through, and Incidence in U.S. Manufacturing

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This paper studies how increases in energy input costs for production are split between consumers and producers via changes in product prices (i.e., pass-through). We show that in markets characterized by imperfect competition, marginal cost pass-through, a demand elasticity, and a price-cost markup are sucient to characterize the relative change in welfare between producers and consumers due to a change in input costs. We find that increases in energy prices lead to higher plant-level marginal costs and output prices but lower markups. This suggests that marginal cost pass-through is incomplete, with estimates centered around 0.7. Our confidence intervals reject both zero pass-through and complete pass-through. We find heterogeneous incidence of changes in input prices across industries, with consumers bearing a smaller share of the burden than standards methods suggest.

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  • Sharat Ganapati & Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2016. "Energy Prices, Pass-Through, and Incidence in U.S. Manufacturing," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2038, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
  • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2038
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    2. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2018. "Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3814-3854, December.
    3. Francois Cohen and Giulia Valacchi, 2022. "The Heterogeneous Impact of Coal Prices on the Location of Cleaner and Dirtier Steel Plants," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    4. Fontagné, Lionel & Martin, Philippe & Orefice, Gianluca, 2018. "The international elasticity puzzle is worse than you think," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 115-129.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3lmdaefcr886ao8sahjmam30ke is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Lionel Fontagné & Philippe Martin & Gianluca Orefice, 2017. "The International Elasticity Puzzle Is Worse Than You Think," Working Papers hal-01470696, HAL.
    7. Lionel Fontagné & Philippe Martin & Gianluca Orefice, 2017. "The International Elasticity Puzzle Is Worse Than You Think," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01470696, HAL.
    8. Jacquelyn Pless & Arthur A. van Benthem, 2019. "Pass-Through as a Test for Market Power: An Application to Solar Subsidies," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 367-401, October.
    9. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2015. "Why is Pollution from U.S. Manufacturing Declining" The Roles of Trade, Regulation, Productivity, and Preferences," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1982R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Sep 2016.
    10. Gabriel E. Lade & James Bushnell, 2019. "Fuel Subsidy Pass-Through and Market Structure: Evidence from the Renewable Fuel Standard," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 563-592.
    11. Gabriel E. Lade & James Bushnell, 2016. "Fuel Subsidy Pass-Through and Market Structure: Evidence from the Renewable Fuel Standard," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 16-wp570, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    12. Don Fullerton & Erich Muehlegger, 2017. "Who Bears the Economic Costs of Environmental Regulations?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6596, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pass-through; incidence; energy prices; productivity; climate change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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