Macro-economic determinants of consumer price knowledge: A meta-analysis of four decades of research

For the past four decades, dozens of researchers have studied consumer price knowledge, often with disagreements on the extent of consumer' ignorance about prices. While some of these disagreements have been attributed to research design variations among studies, no inquiry has yet been made on the role of the economic environment on consumer price knowledge. Nevertheless, environmental factors such as interest rates, unemployment, and economic growth may significantly influence consumers' knowledge of prices. Certain economic environments may therefore provide marketers with the ability to utilize pricing tactics which rely on limitations in consumers' knowledge of product prices. Using a meta-analytic framework, this paper synthesizes the results of 297 previous price knowledge studies to document the effects of inflation, unemployment, GDP growth, interest rates, country of study, and passage of time on consumer price knowledge. The meta-analysis results demonstrate that economic factors have considerable influence on explaining variations in consumer price knowledge. Managerial and public policy implications of the findings in light of turbulent economic environments are discussed.     

The price of freedom: A Fama–French freedom factor

Economic institutions in-part explain cross-country variation in levels of investment and capital market characteristics. Here, country-level equity returns are related to cross-country differences in economic institutions as measured by an index of economic freedom. The ex-ante level and ex-post change in economic freedom are observed to be country-level equity return factors exhibiting Sharpe ratios greater than that of the value, momentum, and size factors, factors to which change in economic freedom has a low correlation. Fama–MacBeth regressions confirm the economic freedom factor. Finally, the excess return earned from investing in countries with low economic freedom is the price of freedom.     

On the Implications of Reporting Retail Food Prices over Extended Periods

This paper reports the results of economic experiments designed to determine the implications of a changed information flow to sellers in spatial markets. The experimental design used duopoly posted-price markets. Apparently, price and firm profit levels increase as a result of instituting a price reporting system when consumers are fully informed. In light of these findings, it appears that a retail food price reporting system may have adverse impacts on consumers, especially when instituted for longer time periods.     

Why price‐level dispersion went up in Europe after the financial crisis

Persistent price differences across euro area countries are an indication of incomplete economic integration. We analyse long‐ and short‐run developments of price‐level dispersion in the euro area and compare the results with price dispersion across US cities. We find that monetary and economic integration in Europe has been successful in establishing a major downward trend in price‐level differences across countries since 1960. After the Global Financial Crisis and the European Sovereign Debt Crisis, diverging economic conditions across euro area countries led to higher income dispersion, which contributed to a widening of price‐level differences again.     

Price-Quality Relations and Hedonic Price Indexes for Cars in the United Kingdom

The main objective of this paper is to employ a complete set of panel data on UK car characteristics to estimate a hedonic car price model. This enables us to examine price differences between various car models in terms of variations in individual car characteristics.We also pay greater attention to the specification of the hedonic price model than previous studies, as shown by the wide range of diagnostics reported. A second objective of the paper is to utilise the estimates of the hedonic price model to construct a hedonic price index for cars, which allows us to investigate the increase of car prices due to quality and non-quality factors.     

(Dynamic) willingness to pay and e-commerce: Insights from sparkling wine sector in Russia

Although economic theory clearly provides reasons for a hedonic price function to change over time, this is not how it is traditionally approached empirically. For wine, which is one of the most widely used implications of hedonic price analysis, such time invariance can be traced down to the issues of data availability and price rigidity in the food and beverage sector. The development of e-commerce changes both these premises, providing reasons for more frequent price adjustments and making price data available at each point of time. Is willingness to pay for particular product attributes indeed time-invariant? In this paper, daily price quotes from the largest online grocery market in Russia are used to address this question using sparkling wines as an example. The results indicate that time invariance might be a rather strong empirical assumption, suggesting that the time dimension should be included into hedonic price studies whenever the data allows for it.     

TAXATION,SOCIAL GOODS AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF FREEDOM

The quantity of an individual's freedom is thought to coincide with the width of her opportunity set, and this is defined by taking account of budgetary, institutional and legal constraints to choices. A simple cardinal measure of freedom is proposed on the ground of which some exercises in comparative statics are worked out. It is shown that individual choice freedom may be widened when a new good is publicly provided free or at a low price. Furthermore, it is argued that progressive taxation redistributes freedom in favour of the poor, all the more so when public revenues are used to finance the public provision of goods, in which case overall freedom may be augmented.     

经济增长对石油需求及石油价格影响的计量分析

通过两阶段回归模型对石油价格的分析及模拟,定量分析了中国经济增长对石油价格的影响。结果显示,如果中国保持8%的经济增长,世界石油价格到2010年将升高1.70%-2.30%。到2030年世界石油价格将升高7.94%-10.48%。从长远来看,对世界石油价格确有一定影响。从石油使用效率来看,中国比美国低44.28%,假如中国提高到美国的石油使用效率水平,全世界就可节约成本160亿美元。面对未来国际能源发展的新形势和世界石油价格波动冲击,需要世界各国共同努力。重视石油科技的研究与开发利用,提高能源使用效率。     

Determinants of bribery in international business

Levels of perceived bribe taking in 54 countries in two time periods were analyzed with respect to two independent variables—their level of human development measuring education, wealth, and health (Human Development Index) and the level of economic freedom measuring the extent to which a nation's economy is open to market forces. The results indicate that lower levels of bribe taking are associated with high human development and greater economic freedom. Developed countries that have shown improvements on the two variables over a five‐year period also show a reduction in their perceived levels of bribe taking. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Impact of Comparative Food Price Information on Consumers and Grocery Retailers: Some Preliminary Findings of a Field Experiment

There is reason to believe that consumers face a difficult task in securing adequate and accurate information upon which to judge relative price levels of competing foodstores. The objective of the research reported here was to investigate the potential of retail food price reporting for correcting this information problem. Both consumer and grocery retailer responses to this comparative food price information were analyzed. A pretest-post-test design with four pairs of experimental-control cities (with replications at two levels of concentration) was employed to collect price data. A modified Solomon-four group design was used for surveys of food consumers in experimental and control cities. The results of analysis of variance models lend support to the hypothesis that price reporting can lower the relative level of food prices, both for items individually identified in a price report and items not identified in the report. The magnitude of this effect varied among the cities. It appears that consumers' role in this experiment was a passive one: consumer behavior and patronage patterns did not change in a manner that would consistently reinforce the competitive effects of the price reports.     

Survival of Japanese subsidiaries in the Middle East and North Africa

This paper considers factors affecting survival of foreign subsidiaries in the context of Japanese foreign equity ventures in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Three new institutional variables, economic distance, economic freedom distance and subsidiary density, are examined as determinants of survival while controlling for other determinants previously established in the literature. The findings support our hypotheses. We found that economic distance and economic freedom distance exhibit significant positive and negative relationships respectively with the survival of Japanese FDI in the MENA region, and moderate positive relationship between subsidiary density and subsidiary survival.     

A Chain-Type Price Index for New Business Jet Aircraft

This paper presents a price index constructed to measure the real price and real output of corporate business jet aircraft. It employs a chained price index methodology to properly account for the effect of changes in aircraft quality and product lines on the price index. The index indicates that the average price level of corporate jets has significantly outpaced the general price level measured by the GDP deflator, nearly doubling the real price of the product over a 35-year period from 1968 to 2003, which could have negatively affected the demand for the product. Because the GDP deflator significantly understates the price increase in corporate jets, the industry’s real output is overstated when its nominal sales are deflated with a general price index. The paper suggests that an industry-specific price index allows more accurate analyses of real economic activity of an industry. The methodology used in this paper could be useful for other industries where product price movements vary significantly from the changes in the general price level. JEL Classification L160,L620     

Cross‐Country Determinants of Early‐Stage Necessity and Opportunity‐Motivated Entrepreneurship: Accounting for Model Uncertainty

Model uncertainty is one of the most pervasive challenges in the social sciences. Cross‐country studies in entrepreneurship have largely ignored this issue. In this paper, we evaluate the robustness of 44 possible determinants of early‐stage opportunity‐motivated entrepreneurship (OME) and necessity‐motivated entrepreneurship (NME) that are broadly classified in four groups: (1) economic variables, (2) formal institutions, (3) cultural values, and (4) legal origins and geography. The results, which are based on a representative world sample of up to 73 countries, suggest that institutional variables associated with the principles of economic freedom are most robustly correlated with OME and NME. Our findings also identify net income inequality and Scandinavian legal origins as weakly robust predictors of both types of entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, we find that log GDP per capita is only a weakly robust predictor of NME, but not OME. We discuss implications for future research.     

Automobile prices and the value of shopping

Consumers shopping for a new car in the U.S.A. or Canada are faced with having to negotiate a ‘good deal’ from the listed ‘sticker’ price. This study investigates the price variations among new car dealerships in 10 major cities. A standardized shopping procedure was used to collect price information based on selected models and options for comparable Chevrolet and Ford automobiles. The findings indicate that consumers clearly benefit from shopping at more than one dealership for a new car.     

房产税对房价的影响:来自OECD国家的证据

本文使用1980-2009年23个OECD国家的住房市场数据,考察了住房房产税对房价的影响。研究发现:第一,房产税对房价具有显著负向作用,但过去30年23个OECD国家房产税率的均值为2.61%。这表明,尽管房产税能有效降低房价,但地方政府不大可能通过大幅提高房产税率来实现。因此,房产税对房价的抑制作用具有局限性。第二,预期比房产税对房价影响更大。因此,改变房价增长预期、抑制投机的政策比房产税更有效。第三,长期利率的回归系数不仅小于房产税,而且符号为正。因此,房产税政策比利率政策更有效。第四,房价主要是由收入和人口决定的,房价仍未脱离基本经济面。因此,收入和人口的变动可以预测房价的长期变动。最后,住房建造成本回归系数不显著。因此,房价并非主要由成本决定,降低住房建造成本并不能降低房价。     

我国FDI流入的地区差异与影响因素分析——基于1992-2007年省级面板数据

本文利用1992-2007年我国省级面板数据,分析了我国FDI流入的地区差异与影响因素。实证分析结果表明:经济发展水平与FDI规模正相关,且在中西部地区表现明显;劳动力成本与FDI规模反向变动,且东部影响较弱、中西部影响较强;基础设施与FDI规模正相关;对外开放度对东部FDI有正影响,对中部为负影响,而对西部的影响并不显著;沿海区位优势是东部FDI高于中西部的重要原因。最后,针对中西部地区吸引外资提出了政策建议。     

An experimental test of brand insulation against competitor attacks: Effects of consumer heterogeneity and residual desire

Price discounts generally move consumers from lower‐quality brands to higher‐quality brands more than from higher‐quality brands to lower‐quality brands. This asymmetry can reverse, however, to favor the lower‐quality brand when improvements are made to product quality. Whether such variations exist when the goal is to retain rather than steal customers remains untested and constitutes the focus of this study. Experimental results indicate that customer retention strategies tend to favor higher‐quality brands. Higherquality brands are able to retain customers by matching the form of the lower‐quality brand's attack (price reduction or quality improvement). For lower‐quality brands, matching is effective only in the case of a price attack by a higher‐quality brand. Furthermore, higher‐quality brands are able to effectively retain customers with price reductions that are smaller than the discount offered by a lower‐quality competitor, whereas lower‐quality brands must match the magnitude of a discount by a higher‐quality brand to retain customers. The findings suggest that differences in customer retention across quality levels arise from (1) heterogeneity among consumers of different quality levels in the relative weightings of price and quality, and (2) switching decisions based on reasons that are biased toward continuing to purchase, or moving to, higher quality products. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A re-examination of the relation between democracy and international trade

Scholars and policy makers believe that democracy will bring prosperity through integration into the global economy via increased international trade. Existing research is plagued by methodological problems that obscure the empirics and avoid the theoretical problem of why democracies may or may not trade more. In this paper, I seek to correct these shortcomings. I test two theories as to why democracies might trade more. First, political freedom may be correlated with economic freedom, thus prompting higher levels of economic activity, thereby driving states to trade more. Second, democracy implies higher quality governance either through institutions or policy making procedures. To test the impact of democracy on trade and the potential transmission mechanisms, I utilize a bilateral gravity trade model covering approximately 150 countries from 1950 to 1999, with fixed effects for time, importers, and exporters. I find the theory that democracy, and many of its components, promotes international trade unconvincing. The coefficients are the theoretically correct sign; however, many are statistically or economically insignificant and fragile to changes in modeling or data. Economic freedom does not have the expected impact on international trade levels, but quality of governance variables have broad economic and statistical significance.     

Commercial Bank Lending to SMEs in Poland

This paper explores the processes of financial intermediation that are used by commercial banks in their interactions with SMEs in Poland. The paper develops an argument for examining the empirical realities of commercial bank involvement with the SME sector within the context of economic transformation by suggesting that the connection between them influences the trajectories of economic change within transition. The paper provides a history of re-organisation of the commercial banking sector in Poland, paying particular attention to the involvement of foreign capital and foreign banks as the trend towards increasing foreign participation is apparent in the Central European transition economies. The findings from this research suggest that there are some significant variations within the commercial banking sector in the approach to, and practices for, lending to the SME sector.     

Duopoly Pricing Under ‘Private Knowledge’ of Product Differentiation

This note studies price decisions in a duopoly industry where firms have private information over the degree of product differentiation (product-type). A Bayesian-Nash price solution is derived assuming firms maximize their ??certainty-equivalent?? profit levels. The comparative-statics indicate that increased risk aversion over the rival??s product triggers price competition. Consequently, the results of the study suggest revealing information is a higher reward strategy than concealing information in situations where rivals have asymmetric information over product type. These findings contribute to the industrial economic literature by generalizing the Bertrand equilibrium in an asymmetric information game model.