Markup dispersion and firm entry : evidence from Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper examines whether and to what extent markups can influence structural transformation in a developing country by creating entry barriers. We exploit information from the Ethiopian annual census of manufacturing establishments to estimate markups and their dispersion at industry and woreda-industry-wide levels. We then analyse the relationship between markup dispersion and firm entry rates in local markets. Results show that higher markup dispersion significantly correlates with lower entry rates into a market, even in the presence of expected positive average markups. Specifically, an increase in dispersion from its median to the values at the 90(th)percentile of the distribution is related to a 4.2% point lower entry rate. This result is robust to different estimation methods as well as to different definitions of the key variables.