利率市场化进程中的逆向选择问题探析

在我国的信贷市场上,由于交易主体的产权特性和垄断性所决定的,博弈双方的权力不对称是导致信贷市场上各种逆向选择问题出现的重要原因。作为资金的主要吸纳者国有企业会倾向于不管资金价格多高,都会无限制地使用信贷资金;作为资金的主要供给者国有银行也会随意接受高资金价格、任意抬高信贷资金价格和筹资利率等逆向选择行为。因此,要想有效避免这些逆向选择问题,必须加强微观基础的构建、新组织形式的培育、监管模式的创新、信用制度的完善等措施的实施。     

对一起鲜活商品价格欺诈案的解析

鲜活商品由于不得长期保存,大多数商家会选择采取一些促销手段来降低销售周期,因而在鲜活商品交易中价格波动较大、消费者无法通过横向对比的方式对所要购买的商品作出正确比较和判断,价格标示中的信息,就成为了消费者购买鲜活商品的重要参考。笔者就一起水果店价格欺诈行为案件的查办,谈点办案实践与思考。     

略论跨域消费

一、前人成果及问题的提出当人们决定消费多少或储蓄多少的时候,他们肯定既会考虑当前也会考虑将来,因为即使不考虑未来收入的变化,在收入既定的情况下,也有现在消费和将来消费之间的替代,即他们现在消费的较多,将来能消费的就较少,且反过来也一样。因此,费雪发展了一种可用来研究理性和有远见的消费者如何进行“跨期选择”的模型。所谓“跨期选择”是指在模型中包括不同时期的多个选择。费雪的模型说明了一个家庭在面临既定的跨时预算线时,他可以通过借贷和储蓄使其消费在整个生命期较为平缓,在当前消费和将来消费之间做出选择,使其整个生…     

人工智能时代个性化定价行为的反垄断规制--从大数据杀熟展开

人工智能时代,数据规模显著扩张,算法能力持续优化。科技实力雄厚、市场力量强大的经营者凭借大数据与算法工具的紧密结合,收集和分析能够反映消费者特征和行为的相关信息,以无限接近消费者购买能力和支付意愿上限的方式对消费者实施个性化定价。个性化定价行为涉及对条件相同的交易相对人在交易价格上实施差别化待遇,可能构成反垄断法所禁止的价格歧视行为。但与以往反垄断实施重点关注的排他性价格歧视不同,个性化定价突出表现为直接针对终端消费者实施的剥削性价格歧视,且在具体情形下呈现出不同的限制竞争效果,引发消费者选择能力与选择范围的双重限制。鉴于此,个性化定价行为的反垄断规制需要准确识别涉案行为,综合判断竞争效果,慎重选择福利标准。对于同时降低消费者剩余和社会总福利的个性化定价行为,可认定其具有限制竞争效果且不具备正当理由,从而构成违法价格歧视;对于降低消费者剩余却提高社会总福利的个性化定价行为,如果选择消费者福利标准则可认定其构成违法价格歧视,如果选择社会总福利标准则可认定其具备正当理由;对于同时提高消费者剩余与社会总福利的个性化定价行为,因涉及消费者之间的剩余转移,对其竞争效果的评价仍待反垄断实施予以明确。     

政府失灵视角下中国医疗费用虚高的成因及治理

政府是医疗公共政策的制定者,也是医疗服务的主要供给者和监管者,但政府自身的寻租行为,决策中信息的不对称,地方保护主义等政府失灵会带来医疗费用虚高问题。沉重的医疗费用负担不仅降低了人民的生活幸福指数还引起了人民对政府部门的信任危机。为此,通过完善制约和监督机制,消解药企和政府部门间的信息不对称,建立区域价格协调机制等手段减少政府失灵的措施有助于改善医疗费用虚高的问题。     

消费者商品价格涨跌预期心理研究

文章提出造成消费者买涨不买跌的一个重要原因是消费者具有商品价格涨跌预期心理。消费者在受商品、价格变化、收入水平、消费目标等因素影响下,围绕单位商品价格变化对收入水平的影响进行分析思考,经过感知价格变化、评估价格变化对需要的影响、判定价格变化趋势、维持价格变化预期等环节而形成价格涨跌预期心理。这种心理具有方向性、持续性、稳定性、不可逆性等特点,对消费者的购买动机与行为具有直接影响,对市场交换活动与经济环境也具有重要的作用。针对这种心理国家能够采用一些策略加以调控。     

基于消费者价格搜寻的卖场促销策略

随着卖场数量的增加和商品的丰富,消费者选择越来越多,他们一般会先进行价格搜寻,然后再进行购买。本文对价格搜寻理论与消费者购买行为进行了初步探讨,并提出了自己的促销建议。     

价格欺诈行为探究

价格欺诈行为探究●何青木易价格欺诈行为，是指经营者以不正当价格手段欺骗消费者，并使其经济利益受损害的行为。它是我国现阶段市场经济活动中较为普遍、危害极大的不正当交易行为。不少经营者通过价格欺诈等不正当价格手段，获取非法利润和暴利。这不仅损害了消费者的...     

超市消费者食品购买行为分析

目前,超市经营者通过制定较低的食品价格来争夺客流客源已成为一种比较普遍的现象。本文运用二元选择模型对北京市朝阳区物美大卖场和华堂商场超市的消费者食品购买行为进行了实证分析,验证超市食品价格对消费者食品购买行为的影响程度,找出影响消费者选择超市购买食品的主要因素,为规范超市之间的竞争行为提供依据。     

基于风险规避的消费者品牌选择行为的经济学分析

在不确定性条件下,消费者的品牌选择行为面临较大的风险。消费者对品牌的选择倾向,取决于消费者对品牌价值的评估和对购买风险的判断。本文从经济学的视角分析,指出了风险感知和感知价值是影响消费者品牌选择行为的重要因素,消费者通过选择具有较高信息价值、消费剩余价值并与个性价值吻合程度高的品牌来规避各种购买决策风险。     

Intertemporal effects of consumption and their implications for demand elasticity estimates

Consumption of a good typically diminishes the marginal utility of consuming more, but for how long? This paper adapts a model of consumption capital to allow consumption to have a lasting effect that diminishes the marginal utility of future consumption. Estimates of the model find that it takes the 25th, median and 75th percentile of consumers 19, 32 and 43 days for their marginal utilities to return to pre-consumption levels, and they are forward-looking with respect to these effects. This generates intertemporal substitution of consumption that leads to an overestimate of the own-price elasticity of demand of ten percent when it is estimated using temporary price changes. In addition to these implications consumption effects share with those of durable and storable goods, consumption effects also raise concerns for capacity constrained industries because the timing of consumption affects capacity utilization. In the empirical application in this paper, price variation in one time period generates substantial changes in capacity utilization in that period, but minimal changes in other periods because the intertemporal substitution is spread over many time periods.     

Are consumers' perceptions of price–quality relationships well calibrated?

Past research has shown that, to varying degrees, consumers tend to believe price is an indicator of quality, even though there is in fact often very little correlation between objective measures of price and quality (PQ). Moreover, consumers have been observed to be poorly calibrated in their knowledge of precisely which categories exhibit the strongest association between PQ for products. Given the profound changes that have occurred in consumer markets, such as the rise of the Internet and the flood of product quality information now readily available online, the present work seeks to update this line of research. Specifically, it seeks to determine if changes in the marketplace have affected (1) consumers' perceptions of the PQ relationship; and (2) consumers' PQ calibration. Data from two sources were collected and compared: (1) Subjective ratings of the PQ relation for various common products, collected using a questionnaire format in a survey of 313 US consumers; and (2) Objective estimates of the actual PQ association of the same products, gathered from independent third‐party information providers who report both prices and rank‐ordered quality measures for each. Results indicate that consumers today (1) continue to perceive a modest positive relationship between PQ (more so for durables, less for non‐durables); and (2) are modestly calibrated for durable products. But they are much less well calibrated in the realm of non‐durables, where consumers expect a positive link between price and quality in precisely those product categories in which the relationship is actually negative. Relative to past research, the calibration of consumers has apparently ‘flipped’ from non‐durables to durables today. Potential explanations for this result include (1) the rise of the Internet as an information source for quality ratings of durables; (2) a higher level of perceived risk for durable goods purchases; (3) a greater tendency for durables to exhibit a positive correlation between actual quality and price; and (4) the rising quality level of private label brands, which may render prior price–quality perceptions for non‐durables outdated or obsolete.     

Demographics,psychographics, price searching and recall in retail shopping

Retailing environments have gone through physical changes and the Internet revolution which intensifies price search and comparison behaviour, however, what customer characteristics – demographics or psychographics – affect price searching and recall? Further, what changes the relationship between the price-searching tendency and price recall? This research develops a framework that integrates the views of the economics of information and psychosocial returns to address these questions. Through point-of-purchase surveys, this study finds that psychographics affect the price-searching tendency directly while demographics do so indirectly through psychographics. In addition, the price-searching tendency has a positive effect on price recall and this relationship is stronger when consumers buy discounted products. Finally, in contrast to previous research, consumers' high tendency to search for price and price recall accuracy and confidence are found.     

Refunds and collusion in service industries

This paper investigates industry-wide agreements on joint refund policies, and how they influence price competition. We compute the profit of fully-colluding, competing, and semicolluding service providers who offer refunds to those consumers who do not show up at the time of service. Our main findings are that both a monopoly serving all consumer types, and semicollusive service providers offer full refunds. In contrast, competing service providers offer only partial refunds. Finally, refund policies are investigated under moral hazard behavior.     

The Role of Price in Consumer Quality Judgments for Professional Services

Abstract

Classifying services according to their level of search, experience and credence properties can help professional service providers better understand their customers. This research uses an experiment to study the influence of price information on consumer judgments of service quality and patronage intentions for professional services. The conceptual framework predicts that consumers believe in a price-quality relationship for search-based services but not necessarily for professional services that are high in credence properties. The study findings provide support for this proposition and suggest that professional service providers should carefully consider how consumers view their services when using price as a promotion tool.     

Some implications of search and switching costs for the price dynamics of electronic markets

This article develops a model, based on switching costs and technological uncertainty, which explains some aspects of the price dynamics of e‐commerce. Switching costs and intertemporal cost correlation lock‐in consumers. Firms initially charge low prices to build a customer base. If firms fail to reduce costs, and reservation prices are low, firms exit the industry. Over time, prices increase if no exit occurs, and decrease if exit occurs. Prices may also decrease over time, if the proportion of low search cost consumers increases.     

Can fat taxes and package size restrictions stimulate healthy food choices?

Consumers prefer bonus packs, as opposed to price discounts, for healthy foods, but they want a price discount rather than a bonus pack for indulgent foods (Mishra & Mishra, 2011). This study conceptually replicates and extends this finding to show that consumers are more responsive to changes in price than to changes in package size for indulgent food options, whereas they are more responsive to changes in package size than to changes in price for healthy food options.     

The effect of privacy choice in cookie notices on consumers' perceived fairness of frequent price changes

Recent regulatory changes (i.e., General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union) enforce that seller (e.g., retail and service) and all other websites disclose through cookie notices which data they collect and store. At the same time, websites must allow consumers to disagree to the tracking of their browsing behavior. Despite sellers' concern about the loss of consumer insights—as consumers might disagree to the collection of their browsing data—cookie notices might also have a surprising side-effect: Consumers might accept frequent price changes (from personalized or dynamic pricing) more readily, if they agree through a cookie notice that their behavior can be tracked. Specifically, two experimental studies show that consent to the tracking of browsing behavior increases consumers internal attribution of a price change, as consumers attribute the cause of the change (here: giving up data) to themselves. This increases price fairness perceptions and, in turn, purchase intent. As a result, for online sellers of goods or services the implementation of cookie notice should no longer be thought as a matter to be avoided, but rather a trade-off decision: Loss of a part of consumer insights versus higher acceptance of data-driven marketing mix decisions, such as frequent price changes.     

Auswirkungen der Markttransparenzstelle für Kraftstoffe

The authors analyse how the market transparency unit for fuels in Germany affects both supplier and consumer behaviour. The number of price changes has increased, mainly due to increasing price cuts, as has the spread between the lowest and the highest price of the day — both indicators of intensified competition. The concern that the introduction of the market transparency unit would facilitate collusion appears not to be warranted. In contrast, competition has intensified and consumers are increasingly making use of the price differences. The analysis also reveals that consumers purchased more gasoline in times of low prices (so-called price valleys) in 2015 than they did in 2012. The change in consumer behaviour is an indicator that at least some drivers tend to use fuel price comparison apps fed by data from the market transparency unit.     

How Good Are You at Getting a Lower Price? A Field Study of the US Automobile Market

Many large ticket items, such as cars and real estate, involve extensive bargaining on the part of consumers. From a consumer protection perspective, it is thus important to understand the determinants of bargaining outcomes and identify ways in which consumers can improve their bargaining performance. This research identifies several situational factors, including the information available to the consumer, the promotional environment, and a customer??s trade-in, that may have an impact on the bargaining outcome. A unique dataset is created from the US automobile market that combines actual vehicle transaction data with survey data on buyer search and bargaining behaviour. The results show that these situational variables indeed have an impact on the price a consumer pays. Specifically, on average, consumers who used the Internet and those that were offered a manufacturer rebate saved $481 and $2,126, respectively, while consumers who traded-in their old vehicle ended up paying $159 more on the new car compared to consumers who did not trade-in. Interestingly, the impact of some of these situational variables differed depending on the consumers?? ability to bargain and their enjoyment of bargaining. For example, high ability bargainers achieved more price reductions than low ability bargainers, given more information and a more active promotional environment, but this advantage did not extend in overcoming the negative impact of a trade-in. On the other hand, while buyers who enjoy bargaining do not possess a better position in a bargaining situation, they have greater tendency to search for price information and thus are better at identifying suppliers that offer a lower initial price. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that information search should be encouraged and made easier, particularly for consumers who dislike bargaining. Furthermore, even if some consumers have a high bargaining ability, there are still circumstances where their ability to get a lower price is limited. Education that highlights these pitfalls is likely to improve the final bargaining outcome and thus enhance consumer welfare.