PRICE DISPERSION AND DEMAND UNCERTAINTY: EVIDENCE FROM US SCANNER DATA

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Eden, Benjamin
• 署名单位: Vanderbilt University
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.12296
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1035-1075
• 关键词: competitive markets; airline industry; business-cycle; sales; MODEL; adjustment; search; DISCRIMINATION; inventories; inflation

摘要

I use the Prescott (1975) hotels model to explain variations in price dispersion across items sold by supermarkets in Chicago. The effect of uncertainty about aggregate demand on price dispersion is highly significant and quantitatively important: My estimates suggest that more than 40% of the cross-sectional standard deviation of log prices is due to demand uncertainty. I also find that price dispersion measures are negatively correlated with the average price but are not negatively correlated with the revenues from selling the good (across stores and weeks) and with the number of stores that sell the good.