Analyses of a large retail scanner price data set reveal a new and surprising regularity - small price increases occur more frequently than small price decreases for price changes of up to 10¢. That is, we find asymmetric price adjustment "in the small." Furthermore, it turns out that...

There has been increasing interest in understanding how firms undertake non-price adjustment activities, especially in situations where prices may be rigid despite changes in market conditions. Using scanner price data for over 4500 different food products from a large US supermarket chain, we...

We empirically study the price adjustment process at multiproduct retail stores. We use a unique store level data set for five large supermarket and one drugstore chains in the USA, to document the exact process required to change prices. Our data set allows us to study this process in great...

Exclusive territory distribution arrangements are commonly observed in many markets. Once deployed, such arrangements are often subject to gray market activity, in the form of unauthorized sales which violate assigned restrictions. Interestingly, however, firms frequently choose to tolerate...

Managerial myopia in identifying competitive threats is a well-recognized phenomenon (Levitt, 1960; Zajac and Bazerman, 1991). Identifying such threats is particularly problematic, since they may arise from substitutability on the supply side as well as on the demand side. Managers who focus only on...

This paper presents an empirical study of the strategic contributions of automated tellermachines (ATMs) to improving a bank branch's local deposit market share at the expense of itscompetitors. By extending previous models of deposit market share in branch banking to incorporateATM technology...

Pervasive and costly automation of information handling activities continues to put pressure onsenior managers to quantify the contributions of information technology IT to the strategicgoals of the firm. This paper proposes the use of quot;business value linkage BVLquot; correlation teststo...

Internet technologies should lessen information asymmetry, prompting competitive price reactions, but this does not seem to be happening in Internet-based selling. We study empirical regularities of price change timing for music CD vendors and booksellers to assess several theoretical...

This introductory essay briefly summarizes the 11 empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank's Inflation Persistence Network....