Abstract not found

Abstract not found

Abstract not found

At the firm level, revenue and costs are well measured but prices and quantities are not. This paper shows that because of these data limitations estimates of returns to scale at the firm level are for the revenue function, not production function. Given this observation, the paper argues that, under weak assumptions, micro-level estimates of returns to scale are often inconsistent with profit maximization or imply implausibly large profits. The puzzle arises because popular estimators ignore heterogeneity and endogeneity in factor/product prices, assume perfect elasticity of factor supply curves or neglect the restrictions imposed by profit maximization (cost minimization) so that estimators are inconsistent or poorly identified. The paper argues that simple structural estimators can address these problems. Specifically, the paper proposes a fullinformation estimator that models the cost and the revenue functions simultaneously and accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in productivity and factor prices symmetrically. The strength of the proposed estimator is illustrated by Monte Carlo simulations and an empirical application. Finally, the paper discusses a number of implications of estimating revenue functions rather than production functions and demonstrates that the profit share in revenue is a robust non-parametric economic diagnostic for estimates of returns to scale.

A principal aim of many sciences is to model causal systems well enough to provide insight into their structures and mechanisms and to provide reliable predictions about the effects of policy interventions. To