With the liberalization of the electricity markets in 1998, Germany opted for a single, nationwide wholesale price. Regional differences in supply and demand are not taken into account. In the event of grid congestion, electricity generators are paid to adjust their output. This leads to rising...

To reduce Russia's ability to fund its war in Ukraine, Western governments imposed a price ceiling on Russian seaborne oil exports. Policy-makers sought a ceiling level to lower Russia's oil profits without raising excessively the world price buyers pay for oil. Previous analyses have explored...

This study investigated the impact of pricing strategies on the growth and sustainability of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study employed a quantitative research approach and sampled 132 SMEs operating in a municipality in South Africa. A self-administered, closed-ended questionnaire...

In 1991 and 2008, Israel abolished the equivalents of 1¢ and 5¢ coins, respectively, effectively eliminating low-denomination coins and introducing rounding in cash transactions. When totals were rounded up, shoppers incurred a small rounding tax. Using detailed data on price endings and...

Sticky-price firms do not merely underreact to ambiguous competitor prices - they actively lean against them. Above an inflation threshold, signals clear and firms reverse to follow. Existing information-friction models restrict weights between zero and one, ruling out this negative...

There is limited theoretical understanding of cost pass-through in markets where prices are dispersed. This paper analyzes cost pass-through within a framework that encompasses many models in the price dispersion literature where consumers vary in the number of firms they consider. We...

Transaction-level quantity discounts are a pervasive feature of US trade, shaping both price variation and tariff incidence. Using administrative microdata, we show that these discounts reflect transaction-level scale economies rather than market power. Accounting for these micro-level economies...

We study how firms' expectations respond to prospective tariff shocks using a randomized survey experiment among Swiss manufacturing firms. When confronted with potential U.S. tariffs, respondents expect sizable declines in turnover and investment, yet anticipate increases in ex-tariff export...

We study how supply chain disruptions shape consumer prices. We develop a simple model showing how disruptions that cause delivery delays affect pricing through product availability, beyond standard cost pass-through, and extend it to a setting with strategic interactions across firms....

Firms tend to justify price increases as necessary to cover rising costs. However, standard models imply that firms not only adjust prices to cost increases, but also to changes in spending. We present a model where, instead, there is differential adjustment depending on the type of shock. The...

Products produced by multiproduct firms can be linked through demand linkages (cannibalization), supply linkages (joint production), or both. We analyze how these within-firm linkages shape the propagation of shocks - such as tariffs - across products and markets and affect firm performance...

We study how firms' expectations respond to prospective tariff shocks using a randomized survey experiment among Swiss manufacturing firms. When confronted with potential U.S. tariffs, respondents expect sizable declines in turnover and investment, yet anticipate increases in ex-tariff export...

We study how deposit rate shocks transmit across banking markets through digital social ties. Depositors' inattention implies that households react to outside rate changes only when social networks make these changes salient, inducing connected banks to raise their own rates. Using merger-driven...

Platforms that provide product recommendations to consumers, such as marketplaces like Amazon or online travel agencies like Expedia, govern a substantial part of transactions in many markets. In addition to selling via platforms, most firms, however, also operate a direct channel. This paper...

This study investigates a joint pricing and inventory control problem for fresh agricultural products within dual channels. Considering factors such as service level, holding/lost costs, and consumer demand, this study presents a single-period model, followed by two stochastic dynamic...

Consumer rights and interests have been a challenge since the emergence of live-stream selling. To solve this problem, some live-stream e-sellers have introduced an innovative return policy called return-freight insurance (RFI). However, other sellers selling the same product refuse to do so. We...

Hyperlocal delivery (HLD) refers to a novel model for delivering goods or services to customers within a very limited geographic area, typically within a few miles of their location, in a very short time. With more and more online retailers moving to HLD, it is imperative to analyse the impact...

Competition authorities impose substantial penalties on firms engaging in illegal pricefixing. We examine how basing cartel fines on either revenue, profit, or price overcharge influences cartel and market prices, as well as cartel incidence and stability. In an infinitely repeated Bertrand...

When and under what circumstances might people interpret a price increase as fair and acceptable is an important question in behavioral economics. We report the results of surveys we conducted in the US and Israel in 2020, a time when many prices increased following the spread of the COVID-19...