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on Marketing |
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Issue of 2007‒10‒06
three papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Louis Morel |
| Abstract: | The author investigates the direct effect of Chinese imported goods on consumer prices in Canada. On average, over the 2001-06 period, the direct effect of consumer goods imported from China is estimated to have reduced the inflation rate by about 0.1 percentage points per year. This disinflationary effect is due to two causes: first, the Chinese share of Canadian imports of consumer goods has been increasing rapidly in recent years, and second, the price of these goods is much lower in China than it is among Canada's other import sources, as well as domestic producers. Chinese goods will continue to have a disinflationary impact on Canadian prices as long as the price of these goods remains lower than what can be produced in Canada, or by other trading partners, and as long as the Chinese share of Canadian imports continues to increase. |
| Keywords: | Inflation and prices |
| JEL: | E31 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocadp:07-10&r=mkt |
| By: | Uwe Dulleck; Rudolf Kerschbamer |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the incentives for credence goods experts to invest effort in diagnosis if effort is both costly and unobservable, and if they face competition by discounters who are not able to perform a diagnosis. The unobservability of diagnosis effort and the credence characteristic of the good induces experts to choose incentive compatible tariff structures. This makes them vulnerable to competition by discounters. We explore the conditions under which honestly diagnosing experts survive competition by discounters; we identify situations in which experts misdiagnose consumers in order to prevent them from free riding on experts' advice; and we discuss policy options to solve the free-rider problem. |
| Keywords: | Experts, Discounters, Credence Goods, Advice, Free Riding |
| JEL: | L15 D82 D40 |
| Date: | 2007–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2007-21&r=mkt |
| By: | Caitlin Knowles Myers |
| Abstract: | Despite anecdotal and survey evidence suggesting the presence of discrimination against customers in stores, restaurants, and other small –transaction consumer markets, few studies exist that identify or quantify the nature of any unequal treatment. We provide evidence from a ?eld study of wait times in Boston-area coffee shops that suggests that female customers wait an average of 20 seconds longer for their orders than do male customers even when controlling for gender differences in orders. We ?nd that this differential in wait times is inverse to the proportion of employees who are female and directly related to how busy the coffee shop is at the time of the order. This supports the conclusion that the observed differential is driven at least in part by employee animus and/or statistical discrimination rather than unobserved heterogeneity in the purchasing behavior of female customers. |
| Keywords: | economics of gender and minorities, consumer market discrimination JEL Classification: J15, J16 |
| Date: | 2007–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mdl:mdlpap:0711&r=mkt |