SMOOTH QUANTILE‐BASED MODELING OF BRAND SALES,PRICE AND PROMOTIONAL EFFECTS FROM RETAIL SCANNER PANELS

Semiparametric quantile regression is employed to flexibly estimate sales response for frequently purchased consumer goods. Using retail store‐level data, we compare the performance of models with and without monotonic smoothing for fit and prediction accuracy. We find that (a) flexible models with monotonicity constraints imposed on price effects dominate both in‐sample and out‐of‐sample comparisons while being robust even at the boundaries of the price distribution when data is sparse; (b) quantile‐based confidence intervals are much more accurate compared to least‐squares‐based intervals; (c) specifications reflecting that managers may not have exact knowledge about future competitive pricing perform extremely well. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond mean estimates of price and promotional effects in scanner-panel sales–response regression

Traditional mean estimates of conditional sales given price and promotion variables may provide misleading guidance about the underlying market mechanisms, since high, low, and medium sales, respectively, may be generated by quite different price and promotion strategies. Empirical evidence for consumer good scanner data reveals nonlinearities and heteroskedasticity in the sales–response relationship—mean effects typically average and hence may obscure a potentially rich nature of observational data. Besides addressing the heterogeneity of price and promotional effects, the proposed quantile regression framework allows direct estimation of monotonicity restricted nonlinear pricing effects for quantiles of the sales distribution.     

Marginal Workers and Their Decisions to Work or to Quit

Abstract . What motivates the marginal worker to decide to work or to quit and collect unemployment insurance or welfare payments? A study of poultry processing plant workers in Georgia indicates that few quit to obtain more leisure. Dissatisfaction with compensation is only a secondary factor. Primary ones are cumulative dissatisfaction with work and the total work environment. Changes in supervision and in the Job structure are suggested.