Showing papers on "Price level published in 2019"

A Model of Customizing Electricity Retail Prices Based on Load Profile Clustering Analysis

Abstract: The problem of customizing electricity retail prices using data mining techniques is studied in this paper. The density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise is first applied to load profile analysis, in order to explore end-users’ inherent electricity consumption patterns from their historical load data. Then, statistical analysis of end-users’ historical consumption is conducted to better capture their consumption regularity. After extracting these load features, a mixed integer nonlinear programming model for customizing electricity retail prices is proposed. In the proposed model, both the structure of time-of-use (TOU) retail price and the price level are optimized once given the number of price blocks. It is among the first that the optimization of TOU price structure is studied in electricity retail pricing research. The proposed model is mathematically reformulated and solved by online commercial solvers provided by the network-enabled optimization system server. Electricity usage data collected by the smart grid, smart city project in Australia is used to demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the developed models and algorithms.

Natural disasters and economic losses: controlling external migration, energy and environmental resources, water demand, and financial development for global prosperity

Abstract: The objective of the study is to examine the impact of natural disasters on external migration, price level, poverty incidence, health expenditures, energy and environmental resources, water demand, financial development, and economic growth in a panel of selected Asian countries for a period of 2005–2017. The results confirm that natural disasters in the form of storm and flood largely increase migration, price level, and poverty incidence, which negatively influenced country’s economic resources, including enlarge healthcare expenditures, high energy demand, and low economic growth. The study further presented the following results: i) natural resource depletion increases external migration, ii) FDI inflows increase price level, iii) increase healthcare spending and energy demand decreases poverty headcount, iv) poverty incidence and mortality rate negatively influenced healthcare expenditures, v) industrialization increases energy demand, and vi) agriculture value added, fertilizer, and cereal yields required more water supply to produce greater yield. The study emphasized the need to magnify the intensity of natural disasters and create natural disaster mitigation unit to access the human and infrastructure cost and attempt quick recovery for global prosperity.

Prices Paid to Hospitals by Private Health Plans Are High Relative to Medicare and Vary Widely: Findings from an Employer-Led Transparency Initiative.

Abstract: Large price discrepancies exist between what private health plans pay for hospital services and what Medicare pays. RAND Corporation researchers used data from three sources-self-insured employers, state-based all-payer claims databases, and health plans-to assess $13 billion in hospital spending in terms of hospital price levels, variation, and trends from 2015 through 2017 in 25 states. In this study, prices reflect the negotiated allowed amount paid per service, including amounts from both the health plan and the patient, with adjustments for the intensity of services provided. These negotiated prices are then compared with Medicare reimbursement rates for the same procedures and facilities to determine relative prices. Key audiences for this study are (1) self-insured employers that have participated in the study and that are assessing the reasonableness of the prices they are paying for hospital care, (2) other employers that are struggling with high and rising health care costs and that want to better understand patterns and trends in hospital prices, and (3) policymakers and researchers who are concerned with hospital pricing and price transparency. Employers can use this study to become better-informed purchasers, and this report illustrates for policymakers that it is feasible and worthwhile to use claims data from private health plans to measure and compare hospital prices at a high level of detail. This is the first broad-based study that reports prices paid by private health plans to hospitals identified by name and to groups of hospitals under joint ownership (hospital systems) identified by name.

Modeling and Forecasting Primary Commodity Prices

Abstract: Contents: Introduction History of Commodity Price Analysis. Long Run Price Movements: Identifying trends and breaks Convergence of commodity prices. Medium Run Price Movements: Identifying price cycles Business cycle impacts. Short Run Price Movements: Color of commodity prices Wavelet models in the time frequency domain. Price Forecasting: Noisy chaotic dynamics Structural forecasting models Prospects for the future Appendix: resources for future research Bibliography Index.

Is living in African cities expensive

Abstract: Although several studies have examined why overall price levels are higher in richer countries, little is known about whether there is a similar relationship at the urban and city level across countries. This paper compares the price levels of cities in Sub-Saharan Africa with those of other regions by analyzing price information collected for the 2011 round of the International Comparison Program. Readjusting the calculated price levels from national to urban levels, the analysis indicates that African cities are relatively more expensive, despite having lower income levels. The price levels of goods and services consumed by households are up to 31percent higher in Sub-Saharan Africa than in other low- and middle-income countries, relative to their income levels. Food and non-alcoholic beverages are especially expensive, with price levels around 35 percent higher than in other countries. The paper also analyzes price information collected by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, and obtains a similar result, indicating higher prices of goods and services in African cities.

Best Prices: Price Discrimination and Consumer Substitution

Abstract: This paper proposes a method for aggregating prices when retailers use periodic sales to price-discriminate amongst heterogeneous customers. In the motivating model, loyal customers buy one brand and do not strategically time purchases, while Bargain Hunters always pay the lowest price available, the "best price." In the model, the best price is part of an exact price index. Accounting for the best price also substantially improves the empirical match between conventional price aggregation strategies and actual prices paid by consumers. The methodology improves inflation measurement while imposing little burden on the data-collection agency.

Tariff Passthrough at the Border and at the Store: Evidence from US Trade Policy

Abstract: We use micro data collected at the border and at retailers to characterize the effects of recent changes in US trade policy -- particularly the tariffs placed on imports from China -- on importers, consumers, and exporters. We start by documenting that the tariffs were almost fully passed through to total prices paid by importers, suggesting that incidence has fallen largely on the United States. Since we estimate the response of prices to exchange rates to be far more muted, the recent depreciation of China’s renminbi is unlikely to alter this conclusion. Next, using product-level data from several large retailers, we demonstrate that the tariffs’ impact on retail prices is more mixed. Some affected product categories have seen sharp price increases, but the difference between affected and unaffected products is generally quite modest, suggesting that retail margins have fallen. These retailers' imports increased after the initial announcement of possible tariffs, but before their full implementation, so the intermediate passthrough of tariffs to their prices may not persist. Finally, in contrast to the case of foreign exporters facing US tariffs, we show that US exporters lowered their prices on goods subjected to foreign retaliatory tariffs compared to exports of non-targeted goods.

Menu Costs, Aggregate Fluctuations, and Large Shocks

Abstract: How do frictions in price setting inuence monetary non-neutrality? We revisit this classic question in a quantitative menu cost model with multi-product rms that face idiosyncratic shocks with unsynchronized stochastic volatility. The model matches the unconditional distribution of price changes and successfully predicts new evidence on pricing responses to large value-added tax shocks. In particular, it captures both the exploding fraction of price changes and the shape of their conditional distribution, outperforming alternative models. The model generates money near-neutrality even to small nominal shocks. JEL codes: E31, E52

What makes you select a higher price option? Price-quality heuristics, cultures, and travel group compositions

Abstract: Int J Tourism Res. 2019;21:1–10. Abstract Scenarios were designed to investigate the influence of price–quality heuristics among participants from the United States, Korea, and China for different tourism and hospitality services, in different consuming situations and in different social group contexts. The results revealed that as the scenarios moved from consuming alone and with an acquaintance to with a close family member, participants in each culture had a greater propensity to select the higher price option. These tendencies were the most evident among the Korean sample, whereas the Chinese sample did not differentiate between an acquaintance and a family member, and the U.S. sample indicated mixed results.

Variation Across Price Segments and Locations: A Comprehensive Quantile Regression Analysis of the Sydney Housing Market

Abstract: Standard house price indices measure average movements of average houses in average locations belonging to an average price segment and hence obscure spatial and cross-sectional variation of price appreciation rates even within a single metropolitan area. This paper combines penalized quantile regression techniques with the hedonic imputation approach to reveal such kind of variation. The method is applied to house transactions from Sydney between 2001 and 2014. The analysis finds significant variation across sub-markets over time and in particular during the boom-and-bust cycle peaking in 2004. Appreciation rates were highest for suburban, low-priced and lowest for inner-city, high-priced houses. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Energy and Agricultural Commodity Markets Interaction: An Analysis of Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Corn, Soybean, and Ethanol Prices

Abstract: This paper broadens the analysis of the interactions between energy and agricultural commodity markets by focusing on five major commodities: oil, natural gas, soybean, corn, and ethanol, and intends to provide more updated information regarding the degree of the connection among the markets. We estimate a DCC-MGARCH model to accommodate the dynamic and changing degree of interconnections among the five markets with respect to price levels and price volatilities. In doing so, we control for additional economic variables including oil and gas inventories, interest rate spread, exchange rate and economic activities. Our empirical evidence suggests that there are varying degrees of interconnections among the energy and agricultural commodities in the long term as well as the short term, but the interactions among the agricultural commodities and ethanol are generally higher than the interactions between oil and gas and agricultural markets. In addition, we reveal some weak evidence of commodity market speculation. The estimated conditional volatility correlations suggest that volatility spillovers among the markets were time dependent and dynamic.

Global Dimensions of U.S. Monetary Policy

Abstract: This paper is a partial exploration of mechanisms through which global factors influence the tradeoffs that U.S. monetary policy faces. It considers three main channels. The first is the determination of domestic inflation in a context where international prices and global competition play a role, alongside domestic slack and inflation expectations. The second channel is the determination of asset returns (including the natural real safe rate of interest, r*) and financial conditions, given integration with global financial markets. The third channel, which is particular to the United States, is the potential spillback onto the U.S. economy from the disproportionate impact of U.S. monetary policy on the outside world. In themselves, global factors need not undermine a central bank's ability to control the price level over the long term -- after all, it is the monopoly issuer of the numeraire in which domestic prices are measured. Over shorter horizons, however, global factors do change the tradeoff between price-level control and other goals such as low unemployment and financial stability, thereby affecting the policy cost of attaining a given price path.

Assessing the size of the affordability problem in scholarly publishing

Abstract: For many decades, the hyperinflation of subscription prices for scholarly journals have concerned scholarly institutions. After years of fruitless efforts to solve this “serials crisis”, open access has been proposed as the latest potential solution. However, also the prices for open access publishing are high and are rising well beyond inflation. What has been missing from the public discussion so far is a quantitative approach to determine the actual costs of efficiently publishing a scholarly article using state-of-the-art technologies, such that informed decisions can be made as to appropriate price levels. Here we provide a granular, step-by-step calculation of the costs associated with publishing primary research articles, from submission, through peer-review, to publication, indexing and archiving. We find that these costs range from less than US$200 per article in modern, large scale publishing platforms using post-publication peer-review, to about US$1,000 per article in prestigious journals with rejection rates exceeding 90%. The publication costs for a representative scholarly article today come to lie at around US$400. We discuss the additional non-publication items that make up the difference between publication costs and final price.

Examining macroprudential policy and its macroeconomic effects - some new evidence

Abstract: In this paper, we provide empirical evidence about the broader macroeconomic effects of macroprudential policies and the underlying transmission mechanism, as well as the response of macroprudential policy to financial risks. To this end, we use structural panel vector autoregressions and a dataset covering 32 advanced and emerging economies. We show that macroprudential policy shocks have effects on real GDP, the price level and credit that are very similar to those of monetary policy shocks, but the detailed transmission of the two policies is different. Whereas macroprudential policy shocks mostly affect residential investment and household credit, monetary policy shocks have more widespread effects on the economy. Moreover, while positive credit shocks are generally met with tighter macroprudential policy, macro-financial country characteristics such as the exchange rate regime and the level of financial development affect the policy response.

Monetary Policy Implementation: Making Better and More Consistent Use of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet

Abstract: Since December 2015, the Federal Reserve has operated a new “floor system” in which it brings about desired changes in its targeted federal funds rate by managing the interest rate it pays on bank reserves and other short‐term liabilities. The design of this new system reflects the tendency of Fed officials to view monetary policy as affecting the economy through Keynesian” interest rate channels. From this Keynesian perspective, policy actions that change the size of the balance sheet are seen as tools for influencing credit market conditions that operate in addition to and independently of the Fed's monetary policy stance. The alternative monetarist framework proposed by the author views monetary policy and its effects as operating through the interaction between money supply and demand. Use of this framework makes clear that, even under a floor system, monetary policy actions designed to affect the aggregate price level and the rate of inflation must be accompanied sooner or later by traditional open market operations that have implications for the size and composition of the Fed's balance sheet. Use of the monetarist framework also underscores the likelihood that the Fed, by paying interest on reserves, has unknowingly contributed to the restrictiveness of its own monetary policies since the financial crisis, a period during which inflation has run consistently below target. More generally, the monetarist framework downplays the importance of the zero lower interest rate bound and suggests that monetary policy could be conducted more effectively by adopting and adhering to a consistent, rule‐like manner during good times and bad.

Monetary Policy with Sectoral Trade-offs

Abstract: We formulate a two-sector New Keynesian economy that features sectoral heterogeneity along three main dimensions: price stickiness, consumption goods durability, and the inter-sectoral trade of input materials. The combination of these factors deeply affects inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral stabilization. In this context, we examine the welfare properties of simple rules that adjust the policy rate in response to the output gap and alternative measures of final goods price inflation. Aggregating durable and non-durable goods prices depending on the relative frequency of sectoral price-setting may induce a severe bias. Due to factor demand linkages, the cost of production in one sector is influenced by price-setting in the other sector of the economy. As a result, measures of aggregate inflation that weigh sectoral price dynamics based on the relative degree of price rigidity do not allow the central bank to keep track of the effective speeds of sectoral price adjustment.