Endogenous Quality and Firm Entry

During economic expansions the net product creation and average product quality increase as firms introduce new products with higher quality.The introduction of new products with higher quality producesa quality bias in price level measures. In this paper I develop a firm-entry model with endogenous...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc
Main Author Faustino, Rui
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 01.01.2019
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Price levels
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Summary:During economic expansions the net product creation and average product quality increase as firms introduce new products with higher quality.The introduction of new products with higher quality producesa quality bias in price level measures. In this paper I develop a firm-entry model with endogenous qualityof consumer goods. Following a TFP shock, the price level increases not only due to a larger number of varieties but also due to a higher average quality.Simultaneously, the channel of endogenous quality actsas a propagation mechanism to other variables in the economy, amplifying their response to shocks. This channel can also be either contractionary or shut down, depending on how consumers derive utility from quality.