In economics, cost pass-through (also known as price transmission [1] or simply pass-through [2] ) is a process (or result) of a business changing pricing of its output (products or services) to reflect a change in costs of its own input (materials, labor, etc.). [3] The effect of passthrough is quantified as passthrough rate, a ratio between the change in costs and the change in prices. Depending on circumstances, a business might decide to absorb part of the cost changes (resulting in ratio below 1.0) or amplify them (ratio above 1.0). [4]
Cost pass-through is extensively used when analyzing the state of competition or evaluating mergers. [3] In the studies of inflation, a pass-through from prices to wages (i.e., in opposite direction) is also considered. [5]
When an increase in costs (the cost shock) happens in a perfectly competitive market, a bigger share of the change will be borne by the party that is less sensitive to the price. [6]
For example, in the perfectly inelastic demand case (consumers have to have the good whatever the price is), a cost shock will be passed to consumers in its entirety (full pass-through, passthrough rate will be equal to 1.0). In the case of a perfectly elastic demand (consumers ready to abandon the market if faced with any price increase), producers will be forced to fully absorb the shock (pass-through rate 0.0). [7]
In the intermediate case of consumers being somewhat price-sensitive, the demand for goods will be reduced; the ultimate pass-through effect will be dependent on the slope of the supply curve. If it slopes upwards (the more units are produced, the costlier each one is, e.g., due to capacity constraints), the per-unit costs will go down, providing the producer with some room to partially absorb the cost shock. If the supply curve slopes downward (case of economy of scale), reduced production will make each unit costlier to produce, so the pass-through rate can become higher than 1.0 (so called over-shifting). [7]
In addition to the absolute pass-through that uses incremental values (i.e., $2 cost shock causing $1 increase in price yields a 50% pass-through rate), some researchers use pass-through elasticity, where the ratio is calculated based on percentage change of price and cost (for example, with elasticity of 0.5, a 2% increase in cost yields a 1% increase in price). The relationship between these values is based on the ratio of the price to marginal cost: [8]
Number of businesses affected by the change in costs can vary from one (in this case, a term firm-specific pass-through is used) to all the companies in an industry (industry-wide pass-through), consideration of intermediate scenarios between these two extremes is also meaningful; the pass-through rate significantly depends on the scenario. In an oligopolistic market cost shocks experienced by one producer affect the competitors through a change in equilibrium price (so called cross pass-through effect). [9]
In many cases in short-term the prices increase more with the cost increases, and decrease proportionally less when the costs get lower; this situation is characterized as an asymmetric pass-through. This asymmetry eventually dissipates, although there is no set time interval for this downward adjustment of the price. [10]
While studying a market with vertically separated companies (for example, a producer and a reseller), terms upstream pass-through and downstream pass-through are used to denote, respectively, the producer and reseller pass-through rates. [11]
The cost pass-through in a perfectly competitive market is higher with less elastic demand and more elastic supply. [12]
The convex demand curve corresponds to higher pass-through, concave demand is characterized by lower pass-through value. The pass-through for concave demand is always below 1.0 if the marginal cost is constant. [13] In the case of perfectly competitive market, . [14]
There are few ways to estimate (or predict) the pass-through rate: [15]
The attempts to accurately estimate the cost pass-through are hampered by multiple practical issues:
Empirical data on pass-through values shows large variability both between the particular industry cases and between different companies affected by similar price shocks: absolute industry-wide passthrough rate were observed to be anywhere between 20% and way above 100%, with pass-through elasticities occupying the full range of 0.0 to 1.0 (elasticities close to 1.0 in practice correspond to absolute rates above 100% due to mark-up inherent in a successful business operation). [17]
A monopoly, as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing. This contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good or service, and with oligopoly and duopoly which consists of a few sellers dominating a market. Monopolies are thus characterised by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit. The verb monopolise or monopolize refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with a decrease in social surplus. Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry.
In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It postulates that, holding all else equal, in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good, or other traded item such as labor or liquid financial assets, will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded will equal the quantity supplied, resulting in an economic equilibrium for price and quantity transacted. The concept of supply and demand forms the theoretical basis of modern economics.
This aims to be a complete article list of economics topics:
In economics, profit maximization is the short run or long run process by which a firm may determine the price, input and output levels that will lead to the highest possible total profit. In neoclassical economics, which is currently the mainstream approach to microeconomics, the firm is assumed to be a "rational agent" which wants to maximize its total profit, which is the difference between its total revenue and its total cost.
In economics, elasticity measures the responsiveness of one economic variable to a change in another. If the price elasticity of the demand of something is -2, a 10% increase in price causes the quantity demanded to fall by 20%. Elasticity in economics provides an understanding of changes in the behavior of the buyers and sellers with price changes. There are two types of elasticity for demand and supply, one is inelastic demand and supply and other one is elastic demand and supply.
A good's price elasticity of demand is a measure of how sensitive the quantity demanded is to its price. When the price rises, quantity demanded falls for almost any good, but it falls more for some than for others. The price elasticity gives the percentage change in quantity demanded when there is a one percent increase in price, holding everything else constant. If the elasticity is −2, that means a one percent price rise leads to a two percent decline in quantity demanded. Other elasticities measure how the quantity demanded changes with other variables.
In economics, the crosselasticity of demand measures the effect of changes in the price of one good on the quantity demanded of another good. This reflects the fact that the quantity demanded of good is dependent on not only its own price but also the price of other "related" good.
Cost-plus pricing is a pricing strategy by which the selling price of a product is determined by adding a specific fixed percentage to the product's unit cost. Essentially, the markup percentage is a method of generating a particular desired rate of return. An alternative pricing method is value-based pricing.
Managerial economics is a branch of economics involving the application of economic methods in the organizational decision-making process. Economics is the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Managerial economics involves the use of economic theories and principles to make decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources. It guides managers in making decisions relating to the company's customers, competitors, suppliers, and internal operations.
The price elasticity of supply is a measure used in economics to show the responsiveness, or elasticity, of the quantity supplied of a good or service to a change in its price. Price elasticity of supply, in application, is the percentage change of the quantity supplied resulting from a 1% change in price. Alternatively, PES is the percentage change in the quantity supplied divided by the percentage change in price.
A demand curve is a graph depicting the inverse demand function, a relationship between the price of a certain commodity and the quantity of that commodity that is demanded at that price. Demand curves can be used either for the price-quantity relationship for an individual consumer, or for all consumers in a particular market.
In economics, market power refers to the ability of a firm to influence the price at which it sells a product or service by manipulating either the supply or demand of the product or service to increase economic profit. In other words, market power occurs if a firm does not face a perfectly elastic demand curve and can set its price (P) above marginal cost (MC) without losing revenue. This indicates that the magnitude of market power is associated with the gap between P and MC at a firm's profit maximising level of output. The size of the gap, which encapsulates the firm's level of market dominance, is determined by the residual demand curve's form. A steeper reverse demand indicates higher earnings and more dominance in the market. Such propensities contradict perfectly competitive markets, where market participants have no market power, P = MC and firms earn zero economic profit. Market participants in perfectly competitive markets are consequently referred to as 'price takers', whereas market participants that exhibit market power are referred to as 'price makers' or 'price setters'.
Marginal revenue is a central concept in microeconomics that describes the additional total revenue generated by increasing product sales by 1 unit. Marginal revenue is the increase in revenue from the sale of one additional unit of product, i.e., the revenue from the sale of the last unit of product. It can be positive or negative. Marginal revenue is an important concept in vendor analysis. To derive the value of marginal revenue, it is required to examine the difference between the aggregate benefits a firm received from the quantity of a good and service produced last period and the current period with one extra unit increase in the rate of production. Marginal revenue is a fundamental tool for economic decision making within a firm's setting, together with marginal cost to be considered.
In economics, tax incidence or tax burden is the effect of a particular tax on the distribution of economic welfare. Economists distinguish between the entities who ultimately bear the tax burden and those on whom the tax is initially imposed. The tax burden measures the true economic effect of the tax, measured by the difference between real incomes or utilities before and after imposing the tax, and taking into account how the tax causes prices to change. For example, if a 10% tax is imposed on sellers of butter, but the market price rises 8% as a result, most of the tax burden is on buyers, not sellers. The concept of tax incidence was initially brought to economists' attention by the French Physiocrats, in particular François Quesnay, who argued that the incidence of all taxation falls ultimately on landowners and is at the expense of land rent. Tax incidence is said to "fall" upon the group that ultimately bears the burden of, or ultimately suffers a loss from, the tax. The key concept of tax incidence is that the tax incidence or tax burden does not depend on where the revenue is collected, but on the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply. As a general policy matter, the tax incidence should not violate the principles of a desirable tax system, especially fairness and transparency. The concept of tax incidence is used in political science and sociology to analyze the level of resources extracted from each income social stratum in order to describe how the tax burden is distributed among social classes. That allows one to derive some inferences about the progressive nature of the tax system, according to principles of vertical equity.
Arnold Carl Harberger is an American economist. His approach to the teaching and practice of economics is to emphasize the use of analytical tools that are directly applicable to real-world issues. His influence on academic economics is reflected in part by the widespread use of the term "Harberger triangle" to refer to the standard graphical depiction of the efficiency cost of distortions of competitive equilibrium. His influence on the practice of economic policy is manifested by the high positions attained by his followers in national agencies such as central banks and ministries of finance, and in international agencies such as the World Bank.
In economics, demand is the quantity of a good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. The relationship between price and quantity demand is also called the demand curve. Demand for a specific item is a function of an item's perceived necessity, price, perceived quality, convenience, available alternatives, purchasers' disposable income and tastes, and many other options.
In economics, supply is the amount of a resource that firms, producers, labourers, providers of financial assets, or other economic agents are willing and able to provide to the marketplace or to an individual. Supply can be in produced goods, labour time, raw materials, or any other scarce or valuable object. Supply is often plotted graphically as a supply curve, with the price per unit on the vertical axis and quantity supplied as a function of price on the horizontal axis. This reversal of the usual position of the dependent variable and the independent variable is an unfortunate but standard convention.
In economics, profit is the difference between revenue that an economic entity has received from its outputs and total costs of its inputs, also known as surplus value. It is equal to total revenue minus total cost, including both explicit and implicit costs.
In microeconomics, a monopoly price is set by a monopoly. A monopoly occurs when a firm lacks any viable competition and is the sole producer of the industry's product. Because a monopoly faces no competition, it has absolute market power and can set a price above the firm's marginal cost.
This glossary of economics is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in economics, its sub-disciplines, and related fields.