This study examined the vertical transmission of wheat price among the main value chain, looking at the pricing behaviour of certain role players in the wheat production/supply and the distribution of bread, which is a major staple food consumed in South Africa. A nonlinear autoregressive...

I study the passthrough of regulated ad valorem pharmacy markups and reduced Value Added Tax (VAT) rates to pharmaceutical retail prices in Finland. My reduced form evidence shows that pharmaceutical manufacturers respond to a decrease in regulated pharmacy markups by increasing their wholesale...

We assess price dispersion in retail markets and its sources over time. Using a product-detailed price database, we document a consistent divergence of prices over time in retail markets in Uruguay: price dispersion increased by 3.1% in fifteen years. Next, we analyze microeconomic and...

Using daily retail prices gathered through web scraping in Mexico, we analyze if price changes can be characterized by time-dependent features, like the duration of the price spell, and/or by variables associated with the state of the economy. Through the lens of a duration model, we find...

Cooperatives, formally established to enhance social welfare and local economic development, often face pressures that divert them from these foundational goals and lead to their transformation into profit-driven entities that exploit market power. Leveraging an unexpected tax change following a...

Background According to many studies, the transmission of oil prices to retail fuel prices is asymmetric. Fuel prices react faster if oil prices rise and more slowly if oil prices fall. Different standard econometric procedures lead to different results. The Linex approach, which is based on...

Using data gathered through web scraping techniques, this paper characterizes product categories' frequency, size and dispersion of price changes in eight retail chains in Mexico, and compare them with price statistics stemming from brick and mortar stores data of the same retailers. Notably,...

We provide a novel theory of harm for resale price maintenance (RPM). In a model with two manufacturers and two retailers, we show that RPM facilitates manufacturer collusion when retailers have alternatives to selling a manufacturer's product. Because of the alternatives, manufacturers can only...

We analyze a sample of consumer-electronics products sold by the US NewEgg online-retailer to study the impact of Price Matching Guarantees (PMGs) policies on prices. By applying aDifference-in-Differences approach,we find that prices of the policy-adopting retailer increase by 4.7% during the...

The high competition in retail sectors around the world has a decisive impact on the selection of the right retail price strategies for developing a strong retail price image. Therefore, this study examines the effect of price-related and non-price factors on developing a favourable retailer's...

Whereas between-retailer price discrepancies are well documented, less is known about price differentiations within a single chain. This article investigates the prevalence and the magnitude of online within-retailer price dispersion over time. Amazon is the US largest online food retailer (and...

We study the price rigidity of regular and sale prices, and how it is affected by pricing formats (i.e., pricing strategies). We use data from three large Canadian stores with different pricing formats (Every-Day-Low-Price, Hi-Lo, and Hybrid) that are located within a 1 km radius of each other....

In this paper we empirically address the issue of whether reductions in card payment interchange fees have a significant impact on prices paid by consumers. The answer to this question is at the core of most competition policy cases and regulations that have been applied to card payment markets....

Grocery retailing is undergoing rapid changes. New store formats and market channels, the entry of additional large players, and increasing multichannel activities on the supply side are accompanied by heterogeneous and changing consumer preferences. Retailers are increasingly competing in both...

We present a model to explain why a manufacturer may impose a minimum resale price (min RPM) in a successive monopoly setting. Our argument relies on the retailer having non-contractible choice variables, which could represent the price of a substitute good and/or the effort the retailer exerts...

We study the price rigidity of regular and sale prices, and how it is affected by pricing formats (i.e., pricing strategies). We use data from three large Canadian stores with different pricing formats (Every-Day-Low-Price, Hi-Lo, and Hybrid) that are located within a 1 km radius of each other....

A growing empirical literature finds that firms pass the cost of minimum wage hikes onto consumers via higher retail prices. Yet, little is known about minimum wage effects on wholesale prices and whether retailers face a wholesale cost shock in addition to the labor cost shock. I exploit the...

Felix Rützel’s assessment of algorithmic price discrimination focuses on the connections between various areas of law. By outlining the existing legal frameworks for each and pinpointing where changes need to be made in order to react to this pricing strategy, the author’s analysis offers...

This paper analyzes the competitive interplay of prices amongst retail channels: offline (brick-and-mortar) and online (such as retailers’ websites and online marketplaces). We find evidence of a close competitive relationship between the two channels, in which prices correspond tightly across...

Through private labels, retailers typically provide their customers access to products that are cheaper than national brands. But how large (if any) are the discounts the shoppers receive for private labels relative to national brands in online grocery markets? Using the case of Walmart’s...

We compare execution quality of six brokerage accounts across five brokers by generating a sample of 85,000 simultaneous market orders. Commission levels and payment for order flow (PFOF) differ across our accounts. We find that execution prices vary significantly across brokers: the mean...

The gap between the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI) is not always showing a definite trend. There are times when the gap between the indices is very high, and there are times when the gap is very low. This inconsistent relationship between the two indices is a cause of...

Price-matching guarantees (PMGs) are offers to match or beat a competitor's price on a specific item. Such guarantees are extremely common in U.S. retail practice, and appear on their face to be very beneficial to consumers because they make an implicit promise to the consumer that she "won't...