I’m wondering if there are any statistics or studies that show the relationship between production costs and prices over the last 30 years-ish, and if the relationship has changed over that time.
The curiousity stems from a gut feeling that increasingly the cost of goods is less influenced by production costs. Going back even just 15 years ago it felt like prices held a closer relationship to the cost to produce it. Even though there is more selection of goods today, markets feel less competitive. I don’t know if this is just how my dumb human brain is interpreting inflation or if its a real fact.
Internally my theory is that the proliferation of ecommerce and the data it produced made it easier for businesses to optimize prices, inventory etc but somehow those gains never made their way to consumers.
Have margins increasingly become detached from production costs?
byu/ThinksOdd inAskEconomics
Posted by ThinksOdd