Tobias Renkin

I am a Research Economist at Danmarks Nationalbank. I am interested in empirical Macroeconomics and Labor Economics. This site provides an overview over my research projects.

Working Papers

1. The Pass-Through of Minimum Wages into US Retail Prices: Evidence from Supermarket Scanner Data, with Claire Montialoux and Michael Siegenthaler

This paper estimates the pass-through of minimum wage increases into prices of US grocery stores. We use high-frequency scanner data and leverage a large number of state-level increases in minimum wages between 2001 and 2012. We find that a 10% minimum wage hike translates into a 0.2% increase in grocery prices. This magnitude is consistent with a full pass-through of cost increases into consumer prices. We show that price adjustments occur mostly in the three months following the passage of minimum wage legislation rather than after implementation, suggesting that pricing of groceries is forward-looking. Prices rise as much for goods consumed by low-income and for those consumed by high-income households. Depending on household income, grocery price increases offset between 3 and 12% of the nominal income gains. Our results suggest that consumers rather than firms bear the cost of minimum wage increases in the grocery sector. Yet, price increases in grocery stores offset only a small fraction of the income gains from minimum wage hikes for low-income households.

Media coverage: Marginal Revolution, National Affairs Findings Blog, Brad Delong

Research in Progress

2. Exchange Rate Pass-Through and Price-Setting after a Large Appreciation, with Daniel Kaufmann

We use a novel data set of linked import, export and domestic prices to study firms' exchange rate pass-through after an unexpected and permanent appreciation of the Swiss Franc by about 10% in January 2015. We find low pass-through for firms pricing their product in domestic currency (CHF) and much larger pass-through rates for firms that price their products in foreign currency (EUR). The differences persist even when conditioning on price changes and last until the end of the sample period two years after the appreciation. Our price data allows us to study the relationship between export, domestic and import prices in detail at the firm level. We find that export prices are closely linked to domestic prices when both are set in domestic currency, but not when the export price is set in foreign currency. Moreover, we find that exchange rate pass-through of firms that set prices in domestic currency can be fully explained by variation in import prices, suggesting that strategic complementary with prices of foreign competitors is low. For firms who set prices in foreign currency, strategic complementary appears to be more important.

3. Exchange Rates and Manufacturing Employment, with Daniel Kaufmann

We study the employment response of Swiss manufacturing firms to an unexpected and permanent appreciation of the Swiss Franc by about 10% in January 2015. We use an original identification strategy that is particularly suited to a small open economy such as Switzerland, where most firms face intense international competition either in export markets or through import competition. Instead of relying on variation in export exposure within Switzerland, we match Swiss firms with a control group of similar firms in neighboring Austria. We find that prior to the appreciation, employment in Austrian and Swiss firms co-moves closely. Employment in Swiss firms drops immediately after the appreciation, while it remains on a stable trend in Austria. Relative to the counterfactual of a constant exchange rate, the appreciation reduces firms' employment by 4% on average. The effects are more pronounced for larger firms and firms that grew strongly before the appreciation. In contrast, we find no effects on small firms. Preliminary results suggest that the employment decline in Swiss firms is driven by a decrease in hiring rather than layoffs. We plan to extend our data to include wages and aim to relate the employment response to stickiness of nominal wages.

4. Do Retail Prices Respond To Cyclical Demand Shocks?

During recessions, consumers reduce their consumption of different products depending on the decline in their income and the income elasticity of demand of a product. Importantly, the income elasticity of demand varies between products. In this paper, I use variation in the income elasticity of market demand to identify how prices of products sold in US grocery stores respond to demand shocks. I use retail scanner data that covers prices and quantities of products sold in US grocery stores. My results suggest that the price response to a positive cyclical demand shock is zero or negative. The results are in line with theories that feature countercyclical markups.

Policy Report

Manufacturing Prices and Employment after the Swiss Franc Shock, with Daniel Kaufmann
Study on behalf of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO, October 2017

Media coverage: Neue Zürcher Zeitung I, Neue Zürcher Zeitung II, Tagesanzeiger I, Tagesanzeiger II, Die Volkswirtschaft (all in German), Radio Télévision Neuchâtel, Le Temps (in French), Reuters