Export Pricing Behavior of Manufacturing: A U.S.-Japan Comparison

The pricing behavior of U.S. and Japanese manufacturers is compared by using domestic and export price data and a framework of markup over cost. Major export industries in Japan have higher productivity growth and lower pass-through coefficients than American exporters, who tend to price to domestic cost. Japanese firms seem to price-discriminate between domestic and export markets. Although pass-through of major Japanese exports declined in the 1980s, evidence on the statistical significance of the change is mixed.