IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/specan/v13y2018i1p99-117.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing used books on Amazon.com: a spatial approach to price dispersion

Author

Listed:
  • Haoying Wang

Abstract

This paper estimates a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model of price dispersion using publicly available internet bookselling data. It uses a semiparametric adaptive estimator that does not require the usual Gaussian assumption of maximum likelihood (ML) estimators. The results suggest that both price competition and seller heterogeneity are key drivers of the observed price dispersion. The paper finds that sellers with large sales volume, newly established sellers and US mainland states-based sellers tend to price lower. The identified significant spatial interaction is evidence of spatial price competition. Controlling for everything else, a seller asks a lower price when large sellers charge relatively high prices, which is also evidence of price-based selling and undercutting.

Suggested Citation

  • Haoying Wang, 2018. "Pricing used books on Amazon.com: a spatial approach to price dispersion," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 99-117, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:specan:v:13:y:2018:i:1:p:99-117
    DOI: 10.1080/17421772.2017.1369147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17421772.2017.1369147
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17421772.2017.1369147?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kelejian, Harry H & Prucha, Ingmar R, 1999. "A Generalized Moments Estimator for the Autoregressive Parameter in a Spatial Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(2), pages 509-533, May.
    2. Rudolf Beran, 1976. "Adaptive estimates for autoregressive processes," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 28(1), pages 77-89, December.
    3. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    4. Joris Pinkse & Margaret E. Slade & Craig Brett, 2002. "Spatial Price Competition: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1111-1153, May.
    5. Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2005. "Lessons About Markets from the Internet," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 139-158, Spring.
    6. Saul Lach, 2002. "Existence And Persistence Of Price Dispersion: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 433-444, August.
    7. Erik Brynjolfsson & Michael D. Smith, 2000. "Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 563-585, April.
    8. Lung-Fei Lee, 2004. "Asymptotic Distributions of Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Estimators for Spatial Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1899-1925, November.
    9. Robinson, P.M., 2010. "Efficient estimation of the semiparametric spatial autoregressive model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 6-17, July.
    10. Robinson, Peter M, 1988. "The Stochastic Difference between Econometric Statistics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(3), pages 531-548, May.
    11. Liu, Xiaodong & Lee, Lung-fei, 2010. "GMM estimation of social interaction models with centrality," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 159(1), pages 99-115, November.
    12. McDonald, James B. & Newey, Whitney K., 1988. "Partially Adaptive Estimation of Regression Models via the Generalized T Distribution," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 428-457, December.
    13. Newey, Whitney K., 1988. "Adaptive estimation of regression models via moment restrictions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 301-339, July.
    14. Van Hoomissen, Theresa, 1988. "Price Dispersion and Inflation: Evidence from Israel," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(6), pages 1303-1314, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jin Lee & Young Hoon Lee, 2021. "Development of a Win Production Function and Evaluation of Cross-Sectional Dependence," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(4), pages 412-431, May.
    2. Alisher Tleubayev & Tinoush Jamali Jaghdani & Linde Gotz & Miranda Svanidze, 2021. "The relationship between trade policies and macroeconomic adjustments in the Russian cheese market integration," Journal of New Economy, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 44-68, October.
    3. Tleubayev, Alisher & Jamali Jaghdani, Tinoush & Götz, Linde & Svanidze, Miranda, 2021. "The relationship between trade policies and macroeconomic adjustments in the Russian cheese market integration," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 44-68.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter M Robinson, 2009. "Developments in the Analysis of Spatial Data," STICERD - Econometrics Paper Series 531, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    2. Lee, Jungyoon & Robinson, Peter M., 2020. "Adaptive inference on pure spatial models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 375-393.
    3. Gupta, A, 2015. "Nonparametric specification testing via the trinity of tests," Economics Discussion Papers 15619, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    4. Gupta, Abhimanyu, 2023. "Efficient closed-form estimation of large spatial autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 232(1), pages 148-167.
    5. Gupta, Abhimanyu, 2018. "Nonparametric specification testing via the trinity of tests," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 203(1), pages 169-185.
    6. Robinson, P.M., 2010. "Efficient estimation of the semiparametric spatial autoregressive model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 6-17, July.
    7. Peter M Robinson, 2007. "Efficient Estimation of the SemiparametricSpatial Autoregressive Model," STICERD - Econometrics Paper Series 515, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    8. repec:esx:essedp:774 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Gupta, Abhimanyu & Robinson, Peter M., 2015. "Inference on higher-order spatial autoregressive models with increasingly many parameters," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(1), pages 19-31.
    10. Bernd Jost, 2012. "Price Dispersion, Search Costs and Spatial Competition: Evidence from the Austrian Retail Gasoline Market," NEURUS papers neurusp166, NEURUS - Network of European and US Regional and Urban Studies.
    11. Liangjun Su & Xi Qu, 2017. "Specification Test for Spatial Autoregressive Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 572-584, October.
    12. Gupta, Abhimanyu & Robinson, Peter M., 2018. "Pseudo maximum likelihood estimation of spatial autoregressive models with increasing dimension," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 202(1), pages 92-107.
    13. Alfredo Martin-Oliver & Vicente Salas-Fumas & Jesús Saurina, 2008. "Search Cost and Price Dispersion in Vertically Related Markets: The Case of Bank Loans and Deposits," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(4), pages 297-323, December.
    14. Robinson, Peter M., 2007. "Efficient estimation of the semiparametric spatial autoregressive model," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4535, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Peter Robinson, 2006. "Efficient estimation of the semiparametric spatial autoregressive model," CeMMAP working papers CWP08/06, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Dieter Pennerstorfer & Philipp Schmidt‐Dengler & Nicolas Schutz & Christoph Weiss & Biliana Yontcheva, 2020. "Information And Price Dispersion: Theory And Evidence," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 871-899, May.
    17. Robinson, Peter, 2008. "Developments in the analysis of spatial data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 25473, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Théophile Azomahou, 2008. "Minimum distance estimation of the spatial panel autoregressive model," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 2(1), pages 49-83, April.
    19. Lee, Jungyoon & Robinson, Peter M., 2016. "Series estimation under cross-sectional dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(1), pages 1-17.
    20. Ya-Ling Chiu & Jiangze Du & Jying-Nan Wang, 2022. "The Effects of Price Dispersion on Sales in the Automobile Industry: A Dynamic Panel Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, August.
    21. Greg Kaplan & Guido Menzio & Leena Rudanko & Nicholas Trachter, 2019. "Relative Price Dispersion: Evidence and Theory," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 68-124, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:specan:v:13:y:2018:i:1:p:99-117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RSEA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.