Search results
1 – 10 of over 62000Melania Salazar-Ordóñez, Macario Rodríguez-Entrena and Manuel Arriaza
There is a range around reference prices, the so-called latitude of price acceptance, where consumers seem insensitive to changes into prices, with these ranges being wider for…
Abstract
Purpose
There is a range around reference prices, the so-called latitude of price acceptance, where consumers seem insensitive to changes into prices, with these ranges being wider for buyers of private brands. This paper analyses objective price gap between two product alternatives as a main driver of consumer behaviour. Therefore, the authors shed light on whether the price gap conditions consumer-switching behaviour and at what point the price gap triggers a switching pattern.
Design/methodology/approach
Shopping data on two product alternatives of olive oil were obtained from a household scanner panel of Spanish consumers (607 households) with weekly price tracking, and multilevel regression models were performed.
Findings
The results suggest that the price gap has a fundamental effect on the consumers' choice. In this case, up to 1 euro/litre the demand seems almost inelastic; beyond that price gap, the demand for the finer product plummets.
Research limitations/implications
This study focussed on olive oil products. The research needs to be extended other food products.
Originality/value
The authors contribute to the literature by documenting how the price context measured in terms of a price gap is a relevant stimulus in consumer choices, with a focus on the change in price sensitivity between product alternatives when competing brands are not involved but private brands are.
Details
Keywords
Examines regional variations in house prices and the rate of houseprice inflation over the last 20 years. Shows the existence of markedcyclical variations and argues that the…
Abstract
Examines regional variations in house prices and the rate of house price inflation over the last 20 years. Shows the existence of marked cyclical variations and argues that the frequent downturn of house prices in the South East of England was predictable and will lead to a reduction in the North/South house price divide.
Details
Keywords
D.P. Doessel and Ruth F.G. Williams
The production of specialist psychiatric services in Australia reflects the “mixed” system of public and private production of health services generally. This paper, an exercise…
Abstract
The production of specialist psychiatric services in Australia reflects the “mixed” system of public and private production of health services generally. This paper, an exercise in descriptive or positive economics, is concerned only with private production, i.e. those services provided by psychiatrists operating in “private practice” on a fee‐for‐service basis. It is shown that there is a sharp distinction in Australian institutional arrangements between psychiatric services produced in‐hospital and out‐of‐hospital. The main differences relate to the general coinsurance rates applied, 75 per cent in the former case and 85 per cent in the latter case. In addition out‐of‐hospital services are subject to a “gap” safety‐net provision. Using both algebraic and geometric expositions, the central relationships between gross prices, net prices, schedule fees and subsidies/rebates are illustrated in general, and in various special cases, e.g. where a psychiatrist “direct bills” or “bulk bills” the Health Insurance Commission.
Details
Keywords
Girma T. Kassie, Rahel Solomon Wubie, Simla Tokgoz, Fahd Majeed, Mulugeta Yitayih and Barbara Rischkowsky
The purpose of this paper is to identify sources and quantifying distortions to agricultural incentives to produce along the small ruminant value chains in Ethiopia.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify sources and quantifying distortions to agricultural incentives to produce along the small ruminant value chains in Ethiopia.
Design/methodology/approach
National and district level average nominal rate of protection (NRPs) were computed for a five-year period (2010–2015). The authors developed four scenarios based on combinations of the different data generation processes employed in relation to each of the key variables.
Findings
The NRPs at farm gate and retail market for both sheep and goats are negative indicating a strong deviation of producer and retailer prices from the comparable export prices over the five-year period. Policy induced distortions were separated from market inefficiencies through use of data on access costs throughout the value chain. These access costs are positive and significant in value. It is clear that market inefficiencies are also due to government policy to a certain extent.
Research limitations/implications
This study focuses only on sheep and goat value chains and covers only five-year period. This certainly limits the extrapolability of the results.
Originality/value
This study presents the extent to which smallholder livestock keepers are discouraged through disincentives in a unique context. This is the first study done on small ruminant value chains in the developing world.
Details
Keywords
Rosaria Rita Canale and Rajmund Mirdala
The role of money and monetary policy of the central bank in pursuing macroeconomic stability has significantly changed over the period since the end of World War II…
Abstract
The role of money and monetary policy of the central bank in pursuing macroeconomic stability has significantly changed over the period since the end of World War II. Globalization, liberalization, integration, and transition processes generally shaped the crucial milestones of the macroeconomic development and substantial features of economic policy and its framework in Europe. Policy-driven changes together with variety of exogenous shocks significantly affected the key features of macroeconomic environment on the European continent that fashioned the framework and design of monetary policies.
This chapter examines the key basis of the central bank’s monetary policy on its way to pursue and preserve the internal and external stability of the purchasing power of money. Substantial elements of the monetary policy like objectives and strategies are not only generally introduced but also critically discussed according to their accuracy, suitability, and reliability in the changing macroeconomic conditions. Brief overview of the Eurozone common monetary policy milestones and the past Eastern bloc countries’ experience with a variety of exchange rate regimes provides interesting empirical evidence on origins and implications of vital changes in the monetary policy conduction in Europe and the Eurozone.
Details
Keywords
Because its actual impact is still rather blurred, the euro brings up many questions among managers as well as gives rise to much marketing research. This paper aims specifically…
Abstract
Purpose
Because its actual impact is still rather blurred, the euro brings up many questions among managers as well as gives rise to much marketing research. This paper aims specifically to assess and measure the impact of the euro on the consumer decision process.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper first expounds the theory that the currency changeover creates a cognitive and visual bias. Then it moves on to give experimental evidence with a sample of 800 real buyers that, in the French context, the euro currency creates a bias on the different stages of the decision process.
Findings
Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) reveals that euro prices influence the treatment of price information, price perception and, to a more marginal extent, the perception of product value. Individual factors, such as increased experience with the euro, moderate judgmental bias strength.
Practical implications
The results bring out the face value effect of prices, which shows that when unsure of actual price value the consumers turn to nominal value as an anchor for evaluating prices. This paper identifies implications for retailers who have to watch both the overall price range of the items they offer and the price positioning of their own brands in euros and implications for public authorities who have to force consumers to replace price references in the old currency with references in euros.
Originality/value
This research brings out the “magical” or “illusory” effects of prices, while there is only very scant academic evidence available.
Nan Li and Liu Yuanchun
The purpose of this paper is to summarize different methods of constructing the financial conditions index (FCI) and analyze current studies on constructing FCI for China. Due to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to summarize different methods of constructing the financial conditions index (FCI) and analyze current studies on constructing FCI for China. Due to shifts of China’s financial mechanisms in the post-crisis era, conventional ways of FCI construction have their limitations.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper suggests improvements in two aspects, i.e. using time-varying weights and introducing non-financial variables. In the empirical study, the author first develops an FCI with fixed weights for comparison, constructs a post-crisis FCI based on time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model and finally examines the FCI with time-varying weights concerning its explanatory and predictive power for inflation.
Findings
Results suggest that the FCI with time-varying weights performs better than one with fixed weights and the former better reflects China’s financial conditions. Furthermore, introduction of credit availability improves the FCI.
Originality/value
FCI constructed in this paper goes ahead of inflation by about 11 months, and it has strong explanatory and predictive power for inflation. Constructing an appropriate FCI is important for improving the effectiveness and predictive power of the post-crisis monetary policy and foe achieving both economic and financial stability.
Details
Keywords
K.N. Rao, Sunil Kumar and Manorama Tripathi
The purpose of this paper is to compare the prices of print and electronic versions of the same scholarly titles charged from a university library. This study also examines…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare the prices of print and electronic versions of the same scholarly titles charged from a university library. This study also examines whether preferences for print or electronic formats differ with disciplines and whether high preferences for the electronic version in particular disciplines lead to tagging of high prices for e-books in those disciplines. This study evaluates association in prices of e-books and their print versions for scholarly books. It also explains trends in gaps of prices of electronic and their print versions over the time to understand changing price policy of e-books with time.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a case study analysing and interpreting prices of 717 book titles available in electronic and print versions out of 1248 book titles recommended by the faculty members of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in early 2014. The minimum prices quoted by publishers or aggregators for these books became the secondary data for the study. The research methodology is based on quantitative descriptive and inferential statistical techniques.
Findings
The study statistically rejected the hypothesis that price tags of electronic and print versions of books do not differ significantly. E-books are usually more expensive than their print counterparts. They are more highly priced in disciplines, where the users prefer electronic books over the print ones. There is a moderate association in prices of electronic and their print versions; libraries can estimate about the budget which would be required for procuring books in electronic format with the help of price of print version; however, the accuracy of this stipulation would be only 20 per cent. The study has highlighted that 95.4 per cent of the scholarly e-books in English medium are published in the USA and the UK. The university presses of Cambridge, Oxford, Columbia, Princeton and MIT and commercial publishers like Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Ashgate and Springer are the major publishers and providers of the scholarly e-books.
Originality/value
This study provides insights into pricing policy of electronic and their print versions of scholarly book titles for libraries. Thus it may be relevant and helpful for library administrators in informed decision making while developing their collections for books.
Details
Keywords
Lirong Wang, Yingjie Lan and Deming Zhou
Fairness concerns in the supply chain management have recently caught much attention in the OM research community. The combined effect of fairness and competition on supply chain…
Abstract
Purpose
Fairness concerns in the supply chain management have recently caught much attention in the OM research community. The combined effect of fairness and competition on supply chain coordination and the interplay between them, however, have yet to be thoroughly examined.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors study a multiplayer supply chain with one supplier and two competing retailers with fairness concerns by a three-player Stackelberg game model. This theoretical study provides equilibrium solutions under different ranges of fairness and competition combinations. Besides theoretical analysis, the authors also conduct standard economic experiments and estimate structural parameters using experimental data.
Findings
The authors find that a simple wholesale price can coordinate the whole supply chain with certain conditions of fairness and competition. Moreover, although fairness concerns always decrease the wholesale price and increase retailers' profit share, downstream competition weakens such effects and decreases downstream players' market share. The experiments confirm the existence of fairness concerns and the interaction of competition and fairness, as shown in the theoretical analysis.
Research limitations/implications
A more comprehensive model with both distributional and peer-induced fairness considered could generate better insights in the interactive impact of competition and fairness. Moreover, the authors followed the previous channel competition literature and modeled the demand with linear demand function which makes the game decisions trackable in closed form solution. A more general demand function could result in different solutions and thus new insights.
Originality/value
The authors’ work provides a comprehensive theoretical study of the interaction between fairness concerns and competition and clarifies the in-depth connection between the effects of competition and fairness concerns in the literature.
Details
Keywords
Niclas Andrén and Lars Oxelheim
The financial crisis starting in 2008 made many European countries opt for a change of exchange rate regime. The choice of price measure as an entry requirement to the European…
Abstract
Purpose
The financial crisis starting in 2008 made many European countries opt for a change of exchange rate regime. The choice of price measure as an entry requirement to the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and as input in the monetary policy decision process re‐appeared as an important political and research issue. This paper aims to argue that, considering the importance of producer prices in international competition, their role is underplayed by policy makers and researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
Producer prices are analyzed in the transition from national exchange‐rate regimes to the EMU for 13 two‐digit manufacturing sectors in the first 11 countries to adopt the Euro.
Findings
It was found that significant price convergence before 1993‐1998, but no or modest evidence of convergence after 1998‐2005 when the Euro was introduced. This pattern is partly different from what prior studies have found for consumer prices, and is consistent with the change of exchange rate regime to a monetary union anchoring inflation rates. A conditional β‐convergence analysis reveals effective exchange‐rate changes and differences in cyclicality as important determinants of price convergence, suggesting that import of inflation is an important determinant of price developments in the EMU.
Research limitations/implications
The paper concludes that considering the role of producer prices and their deviating pattern from consumer prices, producer prices are underplayed in the research and deserve more attention. It is argued that increased attention to producer prices is warranted.
Practical implications
Focusing monetary policymaking on consumer prices alone appears inefficient. Rather, then, support for the trade‐off approach in monetary policy‐making is supported.
Social implications
In considering different solutions to the financial crisis, increasing attention should be paid to the development of producer prices.
Originality/value
This is the first study to focus on producer prices in the research on the transition from a national exchange rate regime to a membership of a monetary union.
Details