Measuring Prices and Price Competition Online: Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

Despite the interest in measuring price sensitivity of online consumers, most academic work on Internet commerce is hindered by a lack of data on quantity. In this paper we use publicly available data on the sales ranks of about 20,000 books to derive quantity proxies at the two leading online booksellers. Matching this information to prices, we can directly estimate the elasticities of demand facing both merchants as well as create a price index for online books. The results show significant price sensitivity at both merchants but demand at BarnesandNoble.com is much more price-elastic than is demand at Amazon.com. The data also allow us to estimate the magnitude of bias in the CPI due to the rise of Internet sales.     

Competition in the Computer Industry: Online Versus Retail

This paper estimates the price sensitivity of individuals' choice of whether to buy computers online versus in retail stores using a new data source on the computer purchases of more than 20,000 people. The paper first fits hedonic regressions for the retail price of computers in a local area and then examines how that price influences the probability of buying online. The results indicate that the decision is sensitive to the relative price of retail computers and it varies by type of customer and type of computer. Conditional on buying a computer, the elasticity of buying remotely with respect to retail store prices is about 1.5.     

The Prospects for the U.S. Economy and Its Major Issues: A View from the Council of Economic Advisers

The U.S. economy is transitioning from a rescue phase to a recovery phase. It is easy to forget the depth of the crisis that required the rescue and easy to be impatient about the recovery. So far, the recovery has the hallmarks of a traditional recovery led by exports, fixed investment, and innovation. Issues of the federal deficit and debt loom over long-term prospects, however. Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind that the deficits are largely a product of the deep and prolonged economic slump and would diminish as a share of GDP as the economy grows stronger. This does not, however, mitigate the need to take serious action on reducing the structural deficit in a way that has bipartisan support and is smart in preserving the conditions for economic growth and fairness. Other concerns, such as oil prices, financial conditions in Europe, and the housing market must continue to be monitored and addressed.