Perceptions of price fairness: An empirical research

This paper researches factors that influence price fairness judgements. The empirical literature suggests several factors: reference prices, the costs of the seller, a self-interest bias and the perceived motive of sellers. Using a Dutch sample, we find empirical evidence that these factors significantly affect perceptions of fair prices. In addition, we find that the perceived fairness of prices is also influenced by other distributional concerns that are independent of the transaction. In particular, price increases are judged to be fairer if they benefit poor people or small organisations rather than benefiting rich people or big organisations.