The theory of clearance sales is expanded and applied to explain why markups, markdowns, and the frequency of sales of merchandise sold by department stores have increased dramatically in recent years and why they differ across merchandise groups. Tha major theme of the paper is that the growing...

This paper reports on interesting changes in markdown pricing practices over time and differences in the pricing within a product line. The price discrimination and the uncertainty hypotheses appear to better explain the data than the peak load hypothesis. Fashion has become more important over...

Between 1954 and 1989 the seasonal variation in retail new car prices declined, while the annual percentage decline in used car prices lessened. To explain these long-term changes, this article suggests that a rise in the cost of a major model change has reduced the frequency of major model...

Consumers are attracted to malls because of the presence of well-known anchors--department stores with recognized names. Anchors generate mall traffic that indirectly increases the sales of lesser-known mall stores. Lesser-known stores can free ride off of the reputations of better-known stores....