Consumer Search in Retail Gasoline Markets

This paper develops direct tests for search behavior in retail gasoline markets. We exploit a unique market‐level dataset that allows us to directly measure search intensity with daily web traffic data from a gasoline price reporting website and perfectly measure daily changes in price levels and dispersion. Our simple yet powerful tests provide strong evidence of both cross‐sectional and intertemporal price search.     

Consumer Welfare Under the Adjustable-Rate Mortgage: Some Empirical Evidence

The theoretical literature on the economics of mortgage choice holds that consumer-borrower preference for the ARM depends largely on the FRM-ARM rate differential. However, there is no empirical evidence as to whether consumers are better off, worse off, or left indifferent with the choice of the ARM relative to the alternative FRM. This paper estimates the windfall gain or loss induced by the FRM-ARM rate differential in a multiperiod setting. The major results are as follows: (1) on the average consumer-borrowers reap windfall gain from the use of ARM, (2) but some individual consumers had windfall loss, (3) consumers with ARMs that have periodic interest-rate caps have significantly higher windfall gain than consumers whose ARMs have no periodic rate caps, and (4) the level of the windfall gain (loss) appears to be correlated with the slope of the yield curve and the level of interest rate.     

Identification of Lead Users for Consumer Products via Virtual Stock Markets*

Newly launched products in the consumer goods and services markets show high failure rates. To reduce the failure rates, companies can integrate innovative and knowledgeable customers, the so‐called lead users, into the new product development process. However, the detection of such lead users is difficult, especially in consumer product markets with very large customer bases. A new and potentially valuable approach toward the identification of lead users involves the use of virtual stock markets, which have been proposed and applied for political and business forecasting but not for the identification of experts such as lead users. The basic concept of virtual stock markets is bringing a group of participants together via the Internet and allowing them to trade shares of virtual stocks. These stocks represent a bet on the outcome of future market situations, and their value depends on the realization of these market situations. In this process, a virtual stock market elicits and aggregates the assessments of its participants concerning future market developments. Virtual stock markets might also serve as a feasible instrument to filter out lead users, primarily for the following two reasons. First, a self‐selection effect might occur because sophisticated consumers with a higher involvement in the product of interest decide to participate in virtual stock markets. Second, a performance effect is likely to arise because well‐performing participants in virtual stock markets show a better understanding of the market than their (already self‐selected) fellow participants. So far, only limited information exists about these two effects and their relation to lead user characteristics. The goal of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of virtual stock markets for the identification of lead users. The results of this empirical study show that virtual stock markets can be an effective instrument to identify lead users in consumer products markets. Furthermore, the results show that not all lead users perform well in virtual stock markets. Hence, virtual stock markets allow identifying lead users with superior abilities to forecast market success.     

The Integration of Mortgage Markets and Capital Markets

In this paper, we develop a model to predict the impact of deregulation in the form of relaxing interest rate control on the integration between the mortgage credit market and the general credit market. The model is tested through the examination of the long-term Granger-like equilibrium relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates in the pre-1980 regulated vs. the post-1980 deregulated periods. It is shown that the level of regulation, in the form of targeting general interest rate levels, contributes to the segmentation of the mortgage market from the capital market. To test this model, we compare the relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates around 1980 where major control on interest rate levels in capital markets was lifted. Using Engle and Granger's procedure to overcome the estimation problem from nonstationarity in the interest rate series, we are able to find that the two interest rates were cointegrated after 1980 but not before. More importantly, it appears that the two markets were already integrated before the full development of the secondary mortgage markets between 1984 and 1987. Therefore, we conclude that the bulk of the integration between the mortgage and capital markets was completed as a result of the removal of interest rate controls around 1980, in contrast with previous studies that find integration occurred during the mid-1980s primarily as a result of the rapid development of the secondary mortgage markets.     

Economics at the FTC: Hospital Mergers,Authorized Generic Drugs,and Consumer Credit Markets

Economists at the Federal Trade Commission pursue the agency’s competition and consumer protection missions. In this year’s essay, in antitrust, we discuss various aspects of our hospital merger analyses as well as the effects of authorized generic drugs on consumers and competition. In consumer protection, we describe two ongoing studies on the use of credit-based insurance scores to price homeowners insurance, and the accuracy of consumers’ credit reports that are provided by credit bureaus.     

国际离岸金融市场对世界经济的影响分析

分析了离岸金融市场对国际经济的作用以及对市场所在国或地区的影响,结合我国国情探讨了在我国发展离岸金融市场的特殊战略意义。     

The Integration of Commercial Real Estate Markets and Stock Markets

This paper tests whether commercial real estate markets (both exchange-traded and non-exchange-traded) are integrated with stock markets using multifactor asset pricing models. The results support the hypothesis that the market for exchange-traded real estate companies, including REITs, is integrated with the market for exchange-traded (non-real-estate) stocks. Moreover, the degree of integration has significantly increased during the 1990s. However, when appraisal-based returns (adjusted for smoothing) are used to construct real estate portfolio returns, the results fail to support the integration hypothesis, although this may reflect the inability of these estimated private market returns to accurately proxy for commercial real estate returns. Interestingly, the growth rate in real per capita consumption is consistently priced in both commercial real estate markets and stock markets, whereas previous studies have found mixed evidence on the role of consumption in explaining ex ante stock returns.     

The Impact of Labour Markets on Specialist Manpower

ABSTRACT A major problem to be faced in the coming decade is ensuring an adequate supply of trained staff to innovate and exploit new technologies. Historically this has often been defined as a macroeconomic supply-demand issue, to do with generating people from the educational sector with the appropriate mix of expertise in the numbers required to meet demand in the industrial sector. In this paper the author makes the case that the concept of 'expertise' is not as simple as a supply-demand view assumes. The definition of what is appropriate expertise for given jobs—technical and managerial—seems to be heavily influenced by who is trying to gain control over whom, a phenomenon that can also be seen at work in situations as diverse as shopfloor demarcations and the behaviour of professional bodies. If this is the case, the solution to the supply-demand problem may well lie in the hands of the individual firm and its manpower policies, rather than in the overhaul of national systems of education.     

The Effects of Securitization on Consumer Mortgage Costs

We examine the effects of securitization on two dimensions of consumer mortgage costs: coupon rates and loan origination fees. We find no evidence that securitization reduces the coupon rates on fixed- or adjustable-rate mortgages. Instead, securitization appears to lower mortgage loan origination fees, resulting in substantial savings for consumers. Securitization activity includes passthrough creation and collateralized mortgage obligation (CMO) creation. We test for differences between the effects of passthrough and CMO creation on primary mortgage costs. Surprisingly, these activities appear to have indistinguishable effects on loan rates and origination fees, suggesting that a large derivatives market for mortgage loans is not creating value for consumers.     

The Economics of Internal Labor Markets

Our essay focuses on the economics of long-term contractual relationships between a firm and its employees, referred to as the internal labor market. We review the economics literature on match-specific investments, risk aversion, asymmetric information, and transaction costs. We argue that an integrated treatment of all four factors is needed in order to apply implicit contract theoy to internal labor markets. Integrating the topics also highlights the tradeoffs created among these factors. Our discussion stresses contract enforcement mechanisms, including self-enforcing contracts and third-party enforcement.     

商品房消费者行为模式浅析

本文依据马斯洛需求理论和大连市房地产消费者调查资料把房地产消费者分层,通过对各个层次消费者的动机、影响因素的分析,掌握目标市场的消费行为的关键因素,为房地产开发商的合理决策提供依据,促进房地产市场的健康发展。     

双边市场下大型零售商的竞争策略研究

本文研究双边市场中大型零售商的竞争性策略,大型零售商为双边市场中的平台厂商。研究发现,大型零售商会在竞争初期采用优惠手段吸引大量消费者,以利用交叉网络外部性在市场竞争中占据优势;基于利润最大化的目的,大型零售商会对交叉网络外部性较大的一方,即消费者采取低价策略,而对交叉网络外部性较小的一方,即供应商采取高收费策略。大型零售商收取的通道费和制定的零售加价补偿了其部分服务成本,并进行了市场中外部性的重新分配。     

童装消费决策的主要影响因素

研究童装消费决策的主要影响因素,通过问卷方式随机调查杭州市14岁以下孩子的父母,以及以访谈方式调查儿童。借助软件,分别从父母和儿童两方面进行定量分析。分析结果表明逛街和动画片是获取童装信息的主要来源;儿童年龄越大童装消费决策影响力越大;安全性、舒适、孩子喜欢是父母在购买童装时考虑的最主要因素;儿童的性别、年龄与童装的卡通图案、颜色、款式有关。     

The Role of Market Research in the Development of New Consumer Products

Managers today face the twin challenges of producing better results, faster than ever before. Robert Davis presents a number of lessons on how market research can enhance a typical new product development and decision plan. His central theme is the disciplined use of very focused market research to make better and faster decisions about a new product throughout its development. These lessons are based on his thirty years of experience in market research, mostly in the new products work conducted at Procter & Gamble.