Factor price

About: Factor price is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2764 publications have been published within this topic receiving 86176 citations.

Land, Labor and Globalization in the Pre-Industrial Third World

Abstract: A Third World data base documenting commodity and factor prices 1870-1940 has been collected, yielding annual time series on wage/rental ratios, land/labor ratios, the terms of trade, and other explanatory variables for: Argentina, Burma, Egypt, Japan, Korea, the Punjab, Taiwan, Thailand and Uruguay. These 9 have been added to a previously-collected data base for 10 in the so-called greater Atlantic economy: Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the USA. These 19 countries form the panel data base which is used to explore the determinants of wage/rental ratios the world round between 1870 and 1940. The data offer a useful way to identify the impact of globalization on the pre-industrial Third World. This paper finds commodity price convergence to have been bigger in the Third World than the Atlantic economy. It also identifies the sources of a previously-unnoticed but enormous convergence in wage/rental ratios. Commodity price convergence and factor supply responses appear to be an important source of the relative factor price convergence in the Third World, more clearly exposed by the absence of significant industrialization and capital-deepening forces there prior to 1940.

Price Dispersion and Informational Frictions: Evidence from Supermarket Purchases

Abstract: Traditional demand models assume that consumers are perfectly informed about product characteristics, including price. However, this assumption may be too strong. Unannounced sales are a common supermarket practice. As we show, retailers frequently change position in the price rankings, thus making it unlikely that consumers are aware of all deals o¤ered in each period. Further empirical evidence on consumer behavior is also consistent with a model with price information frictions. We develop such a model for horizontally di¤erentiated products and structurally estimate the search cost distribution. The results show that in equilibrium, consumers observe a very limited number of prices before making a purchase decision, which implies that imperfect information is indeed important and that local market power is potentially high. We also show that a full information demand model yields severely biased price elasticities.

A theory of factor allocation and plant size

Abstract: In this paper we develop a theory of how factors interact at the plant level. The theory has implications for (1) the micro foundations for capital-skill complementarity, (2) the relationship between factor allocation and plant size, and (3) the effects of trade and growth on the skill premium. The theory is consistent with certain facts about factor allocation and factor price changes in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Is Share Price Relevant

Abstract: This study examines the cross-sectional effect of the nominal share price. We endeavor to understand two interesting puzzles associated with share price. First, the nominal share prices of the US stocks have remained remarkably constant since the Great Depression despite inflation. Second, there is no consensus about the motivations for firms to split their stocks, since financial theory suggests share price is independent of its value. The findings indicate that share price per se matters in cross-sectional asset pricing: stock return is inversely related to its nominal price. It is shown that a strategy of buying these penny stocks can generate a significant alpha even after considering the transaction costs. The abnormal returns of these penny stocks are robust in the presence of other firm characteristics such as size, book-to-market equity, earning/price ratio, liquidity and past returns; and are also not explained by the existing factors. These results also cast some light on the stock-split phenomenon. Intuitively, if firm managers know that low price would generate higher future returns, they are more likely to split their stocks on behalf of shareholders.

Commodity price stabilization : the theory and its application

Abstract: This essay attempts to clarify and simplify the results of the literature on price stabilization in order to provide a better sense of the conditions under which commodity stabilization schemes will be successful and the welfare effects of such schemes. After introducing the early framework under which price stabilization was analyzed, the paper demonstrates the variance of results under alternative and more realistic situations. It treats topics such as storage and food security, inflation and economic development, public storage and futures markets, and non-storable goods. The conclusions are: (i) some countries may lose from price stabilization even though there is a net global gain; (ii) liberalized trade reduces the need for buffer stocks; (iii) futures markets reduce instability at a lower cost than buffer stocks; (iv) many national price stabilization schemes are actually price support systems used to improve farmers' incomes; (v) good price forecasting is a prerequisite to well-managed buffer stocks; (vi) price stability in poorer countries is not sufficient to avoid occasional food shortages; and (vii) food is costly to store and may not alleviate famine if transportation and distribution systems are inadequate.