The DOI matches its Crossref record; 55 of the 55 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Uniform Pricing in U.S. Retail Chains*
Abstract
We show that most U.S. food, drugstore, and mass-merchandise chains charge nearly uniform prices across stores, despite wide variation in consumer demographics and competition. Demand estimates reveal substantial within-chain variation in price elasticities and suggest that the median chain sacrifices ${\$}$16 million of annual profit relative to a benchmark of optimal prices. In contrast, differences in average prices between chains are broadly consistent with the optimal benchmark. We discuss a range of explanations for nearly uniform pricing, highlighting managerial inertia and brand image concerns as mechanisms frequently mentioned by industry participants. Relative to our optimal benchmark, uniform pricing may significantly increase the prices paid by poorer households relative to the rich, dampen the response of prices to local economic shocks, alter the analysis of mergers in antitrust, and shift the incidence of intranational trade costs.
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Citations
Cites
Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium
Berry, S., Levinsohn, J., & Pakes, A. (1995) · Econometrica · doi:10.2307/2171802 · Cited by 4,883
Scharfstein, D. S., & Stein, J. C. (1988) · American Economic Review · Cited by 2,783
Anderson, J. E., & van Wincoop, E. (2004) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/0022051042177649 · Cited by 2,524
Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries
Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2007) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/qjec.2007.122.4.1351 · Cited by 2,373
Measuring Market Power in the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Industry
Nevo, A. (2001) · Econometrica · doi:10.1111/1468-0262.00194 · Cited by 2,064
Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices
Bils, M., & Klenow, P. J. (2004) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/422559 · Cited by 1,540
Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models*
Nakamura, E., & Steinsson, J. (2008) · Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/qjec.2008.123.4.1415 · Cited by 1,520
Does Management Matter? Evidence from India *
Bloom, N., Eifert, B., Mahajan, A., McKenzie, D., & Roberts, J. (2013) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjs044 · Cited by 1,418
Contract Design and Self-Control: Theory and Evidence
DellaVigna, S., & Malmendier, U. (2004) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/0033553041382111 · Cited by 768
Self-citationMeasuring the Implications of Sales and Consumer Inventory Behavior
Hendel, I., & Nevo, A. (2006) · Econometrica · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0262.2006.00721.x · Cited by 620
Cited by
The Production Relocation and Price Effects of US Trade Policy: The Case of Washing Machines
Flaaen, A., Hortaçsu, A., & Tintelnot, F. (2020) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.20190611 · Cited by 287
As the wheel turns toward the future of retailing
Babin, B. J., Feng, C., & Borges, A. (2021) · Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice · doi:10.1080/10696679.2020.1860688 · Cited by 48
How distorted food prices discourage a healthy diet
Pancrazi, R., van Rens, T., & Vukotić, M. (2022) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.abi8807 · Cited by 26
Sanders, R. E. (2017) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.2994426 · Cited by 4
Metadata
- Authors
- DellaVigna, S., & Gentzkow, M.
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2019-06-25
- Volume
- 134
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 2011-2084
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- OpenAlex
- W2954972926
- Cited by
- 409
- References
- 55
- FWCI
- 53.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
