Limit price

About: Limit price is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4865 publications have been published within this topic receiving 148546 citations.

Price Discrimination Through Offers to Match Price

Abstract: In this paper, a firm discriminates between two classes of customer who have a different cost of information by coupling a list price with an offer to match the pr ice of any other shop. If the list price elsewhere is lower, the firm will be successful in discrimination. The list price of each firm is increasing in the number of sellers and the total sales are decreasing in the number of sellers. Furthermore, if sellers coordinate, they discriminate more efficaciously and increase their profits by increasing their total sales.

Asymmetric Price Adjustment and Consumer Search: An Examination of the Retail Gasoline Market

Abstract: It has been documented that retail gasoline prices respond more quickly to increases in wholesale price than to decreases. However, there is very little theoretical or empirical evidence identifying the market characteristics responsible for this behavior. This paper presents a new theoretical model of asymmetric adjustment that empirically matches observed retail gasoline price behavior better than previously suggested explanations. I develop a “reference price” consumer search model that assumes consumers’ expectations of prices are based on prices observed during previous purchases. The model predicts that consumers search less when prices are falling. This reduced search results in higher profit margins and a slower price response to cost changes than when margins are low and prices are increasing. Following the predictions of the theory, I use a panel of gas station prices to estimate the response pattern of prices to a change in costs. Unlike previous empirical studies I focus on how profit margins (in addition to the direction of the cost change) affect the speed of price response. Estimates are consistent with the predictions of the reference price search model, and appear to contradict previously suggested explanations of asymmetric adjustment.

Retail Price Cycles and Response Asymmetry

Abstract: Weekly retail gasoline prices in Windsor, Ontario, from 1989 to 1994 appear to respond faster to wholesale price increases than to decreases, but exhibit a cyclic pattern inconsistent with a common explanation of response asymmetry. I reconcile these observations through a model of price cycles. Prices on the downward portion of the cycle appear insensitive to costs, compared with price increases, supporting the theory that price decreases result from battles over market share. This pattern resembles a faster response to cost increases than to decreases, and the conclusion that asymmetry indicates a role for competition policy may be inappropriate.

Oligopoly limit pricing

Abstract: We expand Milgrom and Roberts' (1982) limit pricing model to allow for multiple incumbents. Each incumbent is informed as to the level of an industry cost parameter and selects a preentry price while a single entrant observes each incumbent's preentry price. We find that incumbents are unable to coordinate deception, which results in a separating equilibrium in which preentry prices are not distorted. Further, introducing the refinement of unprejudiced beliefs, we show that the no-distortion equilibrium is the only refined separating equilibrium. Plausible pooling equilibria fail to exist or involve downward distortions in preentry prices.