Price discrimination is the practice of charging different consumers different prices for the same good, where the price difference cannot be accounted for by differences in cost. The ability to price discriminate enables a seller to charge buyers prices that more closely approximate their willingness-to-pay for the item. By price discriminating, sellers are able not only to maximize their own ...

There are two conflicting streams of research findings on pricing strategy: one is high reputation sellers should charge price premium, while the other is high reputation sellers should charge relatively low price. Motivated by this confliction, this study examines pricing strategy in online retailing marketplace of homogeneous goods. We conduct an empirical study using data collected from a do...

O ne of the goals of macroeconomics is to explain the aggregate sources of changes in goods' prices. If there was a single consumption good in the world, as is often assumed in models, describing the price changes of consumption would be a trivial matter. But, in reality, there are many goods and prices, and there is an important distinction between price changes that are equiproportional acros...

Basic economic theory tells us to expect that an increase in demand should lead to an increase in price. However, previous studies have found the opposite trend in the prices of seasonal goods, such as canned soup. I propose an explanation of this phenomenon: consumers are more likely to purchase without search in low demand periods, reducing the gains of temporary price reductions, and decreas...

In recent years, food security, especially supply, has been an important issue in China’s agricultural production. The stability of grain prices is related to the stability and development of the grain market. Based on agricultural production data from 1970 to 2015, this paper explores the influence of agricultural product price fluctuation on grain production by using the cobweb theory and vec...

A temporary-equilibrium model replicating institutional features of low-income agricultural economies is developed. In this model, food is held as an asset; because food production is relatively volatile, those with negative temporary income are net buyers of food. When food is the only asset, asset effects are likely to reduce the price-elasticity of the demand for food and can make it tatonne...

Timor-Leste’s first ten years of independence have been turbulent and a large share of the population remains poor. Broad-based improvements in living standards will require improvements in agricultural production since most Timorese are subsistence farmers and since there is no modern sector to absorb a fast-growing population. This paper discusses what determines agricultural development in T...

Normative legal systems have struggled to define international property rights. This struggle has been particularly intense in the area of intellectual property because the level of protection afforded to trademarked goods varies tremendously from nation to nation.1 Thus, international trade often leads to infringement of domestic property rights. The tension between the global mobility of good...

Theory suggests the financial decisions of durable goods makers can impose externalities on their consumers. Namely, the consumption stream that durable goods provide frequently depends on services provided by the manufacturer itself (e.g., warranties, spare parts availability, maintenance and upgrades). Bankruptcy of a manufacturer, or even the possibility thereof, threatens this service provi...