Markups and concentration in South African manufacturing sectors: An analysis with administrative data

Arbeitspapier

This paper uses newly available firm-level tax data to evaluate the market structure in South African manufacturing sectors in the period 2010-12. To describe the market structure we compute markups for South African manufacturing firms and concentration indexes for 4-digit manufacturing sectors. We find both significant markups and significant concentration across most sectors. We compare computed markups and concentration with early estimates in South Africa and with other international benchmark countries. We then examine the market structure based on the concentration, firms' size, and entry and exit dynamics to rule out some potential explanations for relatively high markups. We find that the relationships are not monotonic and point to the importance of specific barriers to entry in explaining the relationship between these three characteristics.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-92-9256-083-6
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: WIDER Working Paper ; No. 2016/40

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General
• Subject: firm microdata ; markup pricing ; concentration ; manufacturing ; South Africa

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Fedderke, Johannes W. ; Obikili, Nonso ; Viegi, Nicola
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)
• (where): Helsinki
• (when): 2016

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2016/083-6
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/146240
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET