PRICE DISPERSION AND DEMAND UNCERTAINTY: EVIDENCE FROM U.S. SCANNER DATA

I use the Prescott (1975) hotels model to explain variations in price dispersion across items sold by supermarkets in Chicago. The effect of uncertainty about aggregate demand on price dispersion is highly significant and quantitatively important: My estimates suggest that more than 40% of the cross‐sectional standard deviation of log prices is due to demand uncertainty. I also find that price dispersion measures are negatively correlated with the average price but are not negatively correlated with the revenues from selling the good (across stores and weeks) and with the number of stores that sell the good.     

制定风景区门票价格数学模型的研究

风景区门票价格的科学制定,是社会关注的焦点之一.通过对风景区的功能和特点,以及旅游市场的分析研究,探讨了制定风景区门票价格应遵循"按质定价"、"保护与适度开发"、"市场供求关系"和"客主权益兼顾"4项基本原则,构成风景区门票价格的基本因素和弹性因素,考核风景区质量特征的有关指标体系;建立了制定风景区门票价格的数学模型;提出了实施方略.     

电子客票透明化对航空客运需求影响及对策研究

电子客票的产生增加了市场信息透明度。首先介绍电子客票的发展历程及其透明化特点,然后分析了价格透明和产品透明对航空客运需求的影响效果,发现价格透明对航空客运需求有抑制作用,而产品透明则有促进作用。最后给出运用收益管理技术的应用设想,以化解价格透明的负面影响。     

On Price Caps Under Uncertainty

This paper shows how standard arguments supporting the imposition of price caps break down in the presence of demand uncertainty. In particular, though in the deterministic case the introduction or lowering of a price cap (above marginal cost) results in increased production, increased total welfare, decreased prices, and increased consumer welfare, we show that all of the above comparative statics predictions fail for generic uncertain demand functions. For example, for price caps sufficiently close to marginal cost, a decrease in the price cap always leads to a decrease in production and total welfare under certain mild conditions. Under stronger regularity assumptions, all of the monotone comparative statics predictions from the deterministic case also do not hold for a generic uncertain demand if we restrict attention to price caps in an arbitrary fixed interval (as long as the price caps are binding for some values in that interval).     

需求不确定性下供应商回收未售商品对季节性商品采购的影响

分析需求不确定性条件下,供应商回收零售商未售商品策略对零售商季节性商品采购量的影响,通过数学模型分别对不同需求状态和不同回收价情况下零售商最优采购量进行仿真,说明随着需求不确定性程度的增加,零售商商品的采购数量增加而期望利润下降;供应商通过优化批发价和回收价组合可以增加零售商在相同需求状态时的采购量,提高供应商的期望利润。     

火车票定价与社会福利

一般认为火车票市场之所以存在“倒票”都是因为价格管制的结果。价格管制导致了市场中存在套利机会,但是本文应用一个动态博弈模型论证了:对于火车票这种特殊商品,即使价格升高到供求均衡价格,依然可能存在套利机会;单纯地提高价格不仅不能消除“倒票”行为,而且损害了低收入消费者的福利。本文提出了一种差别定价方式———两期定价方法,可以驱逐市场中的“套利者”;同时,恰当的两期定价还可增进社会福利。     

PRODUCT QUALITY UNDER TWO-PRONGED UNCERTAINTY*

This paper builds on a model by Mikami (1991) to explore the effects of uncertainty on the producer's choice of product quality when (1) quality influences demand price and (2) producers are not risk takers. It is shown that even risk-neutral producers might make different quality choices under uncertainty and that those choices will depend upon the explicit way in which uncertainty influences the demand price.     

Monopoly Price Dispersion Under Demand Uncertainty

When a monopolist sets its price before its demand is known, then it may set more than one price and limit the availability of its output at lower prices. This article adds demand uncertainty and price rigidities to the standard model of monopoly pricing. When there are two states of demand and the ex post monopoly price is greater when demand is high then the monopolist's optimal ex ante pricing strategy is to set two prices and limit purchases at the lower price.     

供需双方信息不完全、交易费用差异与火车票市场扭曲——对“倒票”行为的交易费用分析

本文不认为供求不均衡是“黄牛”倒票现象存在的根本原因。本文针对火车票市场套利行为屡禁不止的热点问题构造动态博弈模型，论证了交易费用与套利行为之间的关系。模型通过对需求方购票的交易费用进行比较，逐层深入地分析了增加产品供给、增加购买渠道和差别定价等途径的效果，发现此类举措并不能有效遏制“黄牛”行为，反而还损害了低收入消费者的福利。研究表明，即使在供需均衡的情况下，供需双方信息的不完全，尤其是需求群体内部的信息不完全程度存在差异，会造成需求群体交易费用的差异，进而导致需求群体内部的资源配置被扭曲，而这才是“黄牛”群体长期顽固存在的根本原因。本文选取2002—2016年火车票贩票情况的真实数据进行了实证分析，印证了博弈模型的结论。而降低这种扭曲程度的同时降低需求方交易费用之间的差距，才是解决此类产品市场上资源配置无效率问题最有效的办法。     

An evening at the theatre: using choice experiments to model preferences for theatres and theatrical productions

This article examines people's preferences and demand for live theatre. It investigates the preferences for people attending a regional theatre, Northern Stage in Newcastle, in relation to other live theatres they could attend, and in relation to the attributes of theatrical productions and ticket price. It uses a Stated Preference (SP), discrete choice experiment, to assess people's utility and Willingness To Pay (WTP) for the different attributes of theatrical productions. The model assesses the effect of the attributes of plays on choice; and the impact of Socio-Economic (SE) and demographic variables on choice and demand. Results reveal the heterogeneity of theatregoers’ tastes for different types of plays and ticket prices. The models reveal the significance of ‘reviews’ and ‘Word Of Mouth’ (WOM) opinions on plays, as the most important variables determining choice.     

Endogenous market structures and the optimal financial structure

Abstract We characterize the optimal financial structure as a strategic device to optimize the value of a firm competing in a market where entry is endogenous. Debt financing is always optimal under quantity competition, and, contrary to the Brander‐Lewis‐Showalter results based on duopolies, we show the optimality of moderate debt financing also under price competition with cost uncertainty (but not with demand uncertainty). We derive the formulas for the optimal financial structure, which does not affect the strategies of the other firms but reduces their number.     

An experimental study of price dispersion

We report an experiment examining a simple clearinghouse model that generates price dispersion. According to this model, price dispersion arises because of consumer heterogeneity—some consumers are “informed” and simply buy from the firm offering the lowest price, while the remaining consumers are “captive” and shop based on considerations other than price. In our experiment we observe substantial and persistent price dispersion. We find that, as predicted, an increase in the fraction of informed consumers leads to more competitive pricing for all consumers. We also find, as predicted, that when more firms enter the market, prices to informed consumers become more competitive while prices to captive customers become less competitive. Thus, our experiment provides strong support for the model's comparative static predictions about how changes in market structure affect pricing.     

Nominal Wage Flexibility and Economic Performance: Evidence and Implications Across Industrial Countries

By considering the theoretical connection between labour and product markets, the paper evaluates the economic relationship of these markets within the contractual wage rigidity New Keynesian explanation of business cycles. The empirical analysis focuses on the short‐run cyclical behaviour of real output, prices and wages for 19 industrial countries. Time‐series and cross‐sectional regressions are estimated. Cross‐sectional cyclical correlations in the labour and goods markets are also evaluated across countries. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, aggregate uncertainty is an important factor in increasing the flexibility of the nominal wage in response to aggregate demand shocks. Wage flexibility accelerates price inflation and moderates the response of real output growth to aggregate demand shocks. Wage flexibility does not appear to be an important factor in differentiating the real and inflationary effects of energy price shocks across countries. Finally, aggregate uncertainty increases the responsiveness of output and price to productivity shocks.     

Strategic interactions and airline network morphology under demand uncertainty

In this paper, we examine how strategic interactions affect airline network under demand uncertainty. We develop a three-stage duopoly game: at stage 1 airlines determine their network structure (linear versus hub-and-spoke); at stage 2 they decide on their capacities; at stage 3 firms compete in quantities. The main feature of the model is that firms have to decide on network structure and capacities while facing demand uncertainty. We show that while hubbing is efficient, airlines may choose a linear network for strategic reasons. Furthermore, we show that this structure softens competition by preventing contagion of competition across markets.     

Two-part tariffs set by a risk-averse monopolist

This paper revisits the classical issues of two-part tariffs by considering risk aversion of a monopolistic seller. Under demand uncertainty, equilibrium unit price declines and approaches towards marginal cost as the seller becomes more risk averse. Marginal-cost pricing prevails, irrespective of the seller’s risk attitude, if clients are homogenous. Under cost uncertainty, unit price is higher than marginal cost and monotonically increases in risk aversion. The model is then extended to accommodate buyers’ risk aversion and it is found that demand uncertainty makes unit price decline in the seller’s risk aversion again but increase in buyers’ risk aversion.     

Firms’ investment decisions in response to demand and price uncertainty

We investigate the effect of demand and price uncertainty on firms’ planned and realized investment from a panel of manufacturing firms. Uncertainty measures are derived from firms’ own expectations about demand and prices and firm's sales. We find that demand uncertainty at the time of planning depresses planned and subsequent realized investment. Firms do not revise their plans due to demand uncertainty at the time of spending, suggesting that reducing demand uncertainty will only have lagged effects on investment. We do not find any effect of price uncertainty. Our results are consistent with the behaviour of monopolistic firms with irreversible capital.     

The dynamic instability of dispersed price equilibria

We adopt an evolutionary framework to explain price dispersion as a time varying phenomenon. By developing a finite strategy analogue of the Burdett and Judd (1983) price dispersion model, we show that all dispersed price equilibria are unstable under the class of perturbed best response dynamics. Instead, numerical simulations using the logit dynamic show that price dispersion manifests itself as a limit cycle. We verify that limit cycles persist even when the finite strategy model approaches the original continuous strategy model. For a particularly simple case of the model, we prove the existence of a limit cycle.     

RISKY PRODUCTION WITH EX-ANTE PRICES UNDER MONOPOLY ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS

This paper concerns the case of a monopolist facing multiplicative uncertainty in demand. Karlin and Carr (1962), henceforth KC, show that, when price and production are both chosen ex ante , the uncertainty price exceeds the certainty price. They also give a sufficient condition under which the firm locates above the certainty demand curve, but they do not consider the effect on the output level. In this note we replicate the KC results and then go further. In the special case that the price elasticity of certainty demand is constant, and the probability distribution for the uncertainty parameter in the demand function is uniform, output is unambiguously lower under uncertainty, and KC's condition for the firm to locate above the certainty demand curve can be strengthened to one that is both necessary and sufficient. The robustness of these results is tested under less stringent assumptions on demand, abandoning symmetry for a lognormal distribution of the uncertainty parameter. Simulation confirms that the results hold up, and also determines the effects upon the firm's decisions of an increase in demand uncertainty.     

Structural oil price shocks and policy uncertainty

Increases in the real price of oil not explained by changes in global oil production or by global real demand for commodities are associated with significant increases in economic policy uncertainty and its four components (the volume of newspaper coverage of policy uncertainty, CPI forecast interquartile range, tax legislation expiration, and federal expenditures forecast interquartile range). Oil-market specific demand shocks account for 31% of conditional variation in economic policy uncertainty and 22.9% of conditional variation in CPI forecast interquartile range after 24 months. Positive oil shocks due to global real aggregate demand for commodities significantly reduce economic policy uncertainty. Structural oil price shocks appear to have long-term consequences for economic policy uncertainty, and to the extent that the latter has impact on real activity the policy connection provides an additional channel by which oil price shocks have influence on the economy. As a robustness check, structural oil price shocks are significantly associated with economic policy uncertainty in Europe and energy-exporting Canada.     

DO SOCCER ASSOCIATIONS REALLY SPEND ON A GOOD THING? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE ON HETEROGENEITY IN THE CONSUMER RESPONSE TO MATCH UNCERTAINTY OF OUTCOME

The purpose of this study is to analyze whether previous results describing the effect of uncertainty of outcome on match attendance in team sports have been driven by heterogeneity in fan demand. We apply censored quantile regression methods and place particular emphasis on the relationship between match uncertainty and attendance demand, as previous results are highly ambiguous. This is more surprising, as each season association and league officials continue to spend millions on enhancing this uncertainty. We also control for season ticket holders, who are unlikely to be influenced by match specificities. Based on data from German soccer, our results indicate that fan demand shows heterogeneity across quantiles and that increasing match uncertainty of outcome exclusively benefits teams who already face strong attendance demand. ( JEL D12, C14, C24, L83)