Factor price

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

Microfoundations of Macroeconomic Price Adjustment: Survey Evidence from Swedish Firms

Abstract: This paper presents the results of a survey on price-setting behavior conducted on a large random sample of Swedish firms. The median firm adjusts the price once a year. State- and time-dependent price setting are about equally important. The four highest-ranked explanations for price rigidity in this study (implicit contracts, sluggish costs, explicit contracts, and the kinked demand curve) have close correspondents among the top five places in two similar large-scale surveys carried out in the UK and the U.S. The results point to the importance of the long-term relations with customers for the rigidity of prices (the estimated share of sales that go to regular customers is more than 80%).

Prices and Price Dispersion on the Web: Evidence from the Online Book Industry

Abstract: Using data collected between August 1999 and January 2000 covering 399 books, including New York Times bestsellers, computer bestsellers, and random books, we examine pricing by thirty-two online bookstores. One common prediction is that the reduction in search costs on the Internet relative to the physical channel would cause both price and price dispersion to fall. Over the sample period, we find no change in either price or price dispersion. Another prediction of the search literature is that the prices and price dispersion of advertised items or items that are purchased repeatedly will be lower than for unadvertised or infrequently purchased items. Prices across categories of books appear to conform to this prediction, with New York Times bestsellers having the lowest prices as a fraction of the publisher's suggested price and random books having the highest prices. Interestingly, price dispersion does not conform with this prediction, apparently for reasons related to stores' decisions to carry particular books. One reason why we may not observe convergence in prices is because stores have succeeded in differentiating themselves even though they are selling a commodity product. We observe differentiation (or attempted differentiation) by a significant number of firms.

Factor price convergence in the late nineteenth century

Abstract: The authors examine a dramatic historical episode of factor price convergence in the late nineteenth century. Their focus is convergence between Old World and New, and the analysis centers on land and labor. Wage-rental ratios boomed in the Old World and collapsed in the New, moving the resource-rich, labor-scarce New World closer to the resource-scarce, labor-abundant Old World. The authors use econometrics and simulations to identify proconvergence forces, which include commodity price convergence, factor accumulation, and factor-saving biases. The results confirm that open-economy characteristics and international market integration are important sources of convergence. Copyright 1996 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

Buyer Search Costs and Endogenous Product Design

Abstract: Buyer search costs for price are changing in many markets. Through a model of buyer and seller behavior, I consider the effects of changing search costs on prices both when product differentiation is fixed and when it is endogenously determined in equilibrium. If firms cannot change product design, lower buyer search costs for price lead to increased price competition. However, if product design is a decision variable, lower search costs for price may also lead to higher product differentiation, which decreases price competition. In this case, the overall effect of lower buyer search costs for price may even be higher prices, lower social welfare, and higher industry profits. The result is especially interesting because recent technological changes, such as Internet shopping, can affect the market structure through lowering buyer search costs.

Assessing Spatial Equity and Efficiency Impacts of Transport Infrastructure Projects

Abstract: Policy decisions on transport infrastructure investments often require knowledge of welfare effects generated from using these infrastructures on a detailed regional level. This is in particular true for the EU initiative promoting the development of the trans-European transport (TEN-T) networks. As projects within this initiative affect regions in different countries, incentive compatible financing schemes cannot be designed without knowing where the benefits accrue. Furthermore, this initiative is also intended to contribute to the cohesion objective on a community scale, and only with regional impact studies one can assess to which extent these objectives are attained. As standard cost-benefit analysis is unable to assign benefits to eventual beneficiaries in the economy, we develop and apply a spatial computable general equilibrium (SCGE) model as a suitable alternative. The model has a household sector and a production sector with two industries, one producing local goods, the other producing tradables. Regions interact through costly trade, with trade costs depending, among others, on the state of the infrastructure. New links reduce trade costs, which changes trade flows, production, goods prices and factor prices and thus eventually the welfare of households in different regions. We present the formal structure of the model, the calibration procedure and the data sources for calibrating the model and estimating the trade cost reductions stemming from new transport links. As the model is only able to quantify effects related to trade in goods we also suggest a simplified approach to add effects stemming from passenger transport. We apply the methods to a policy experiment related to the TEN-T priority list of projects. We quantify project by project the social return, check whether significant benefit spillovers to countries not involved in financing might prevent realization of projects in spite of their respective profitability from European wide point of view, and finally we evaluate the contribution of each project to the spatial cohesion objective. Our results confirm sceptical views on EU involvement in infrastructure policy that have been expressed in the literature.