Inflation as a Pretext for Raising Prices: A Test of State-Dependent Cost Pass-Through

Description

This is the full replication package to reproduce tables and figures in "Inflation as a Pretext for Raising Prices: A Test of State-Dependent Cost Pass-Through." The data used in this study are derived entirely from publicly available sources: the U.S. Department of Transportation Airline Origin and Destination Survey (DB1B) and Form 41 financial schedules (P-12(a) and P-6), obtained from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics TranStats database; macroeconomic series from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED); and metropolitan-area demographic data from IPUMS-USA (American Community Survey) and the U.S. Census Bureau API. The constructed route-carrier-quarter analysis dataset and the Stata code that builds it and reproduces all tables and figures have been deposited at Mendeley Data.

Steps to reproduce

You need to insert you census API key and FRED API key in market.do and macro.do respectively. `run_all.do` runs the nine component do-files in dependency order: `DB1B.do` (raw DB1B survey → `db1b.dta`), then `macro.do`, `market.do`, `rkt.do` (needs `db1b.dta`), and the auxiliary `cost.do` build the sources, then `build_rkt_ready.do` assembles `rkt_ready.dta` from `rkt`/`macro`/`market`, and finally `Descriptive.do`, `Baseline.do`, and `Event_Study.do` write tables/figures to `output/`. Set `PROJ` at the top of `run_all.do` to the folder holding the do-files and data, use the stage toggles to skip stages you don't need to rebuild, then `do "run_all.do"`. Prerequisites: the SSC commands `ftools`, `reghdfe`, `ivreg2`, `ranktest`, `ivreghdfe`, and `estout`, plus `getcensus` (verify its install source); valid FRED and Census API keys (hardcoded in `macro.do`/`market.do`) and internet access; the raw DB1B files for `DB1B.do`; and the BTS Form 41 CSVs and `IPUMS_market.dat` in the project folder. Note: each sub-file hardcodes its own absolute paths and several call `clear all`, so `PROJ` only sets the working directory — moving the project means editing the path inside each sub-file too; and `cost.dta` is not read by anything downstream (set `run_cost = 0` to skip it).

Institutions

• Northeastern University

  Massachusetts, Boston

Categories

Licence