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Demand and Distance: Evidence on Cross-Border Shopping

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Author Info
Asplund, Björn Marcus
Friberg, Richard
Wilander, Fredrik

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Abstract

While many studies have documented deviations from the Law of One Price in international settings, evidence is scarce on the extent to which consumers take advantage of price differentials and engage in cross border shopping. We use data from 287 Swedish municipalities to estimate how responsive alcohol sales are to foreign prices, and relate the sensitivity to the location’s distance to the border. Typical results suggest that the elasticity with respect to the foreign price is around 0.4 in the border region; moving 200 (400) kilometres inland reduces it to 0.2 (0.1). Given that cross-country price differences for alcohol and other products are often caused by taxes, our evidence has implications for the debate on tax competition/harmonization.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 4983.

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Date of creation: Apr 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:4983

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Related research
Keywords: cross border shopping; european integration; law of one price; tax competition; tax harmonization;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
R12 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. You-Qiang Wang, 1999. "Commodity Taxes under Fiscal Competition: Stackelberg Equilibrium and Optimality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 974-981, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 593, Boston College Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Michael Keen, 2002. "Some International Issues in Commodity Taxation," IMF Working Papers 02/124, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  4. Austan Goolsbee, 2000. "In A World Without Borders: The Impact Of Taxes On Internet Commerce," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(2), pages 561-576, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Jeffrey R. Campbell & Beverly Lapham, 2002. "Real exchange rate fluctuations and the dynamics of retail trade industries on the U.S.-Canada border," Working Paper Series WP-02-17, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Joris Pinkse & Margaret E. Slade & Craig Brett, 2002. "Spatial Price Competition: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1111-1153, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Mintz, Jack & Tulkens, Henry, 1986. "Commodity tax competition between member states of a federation: equilibrium and efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 133-172, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Garrett, Thomas A. & Marsh, Thomas L., 2002. "The revenue impacts of cross-border lottery shopping in the presence of spatial autocorrelation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 501-519, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Haskel, Jonathan & Wolf, Holger, 2001. " The Law of One Price--A Case Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 103(4), pages 545-58, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Kanbur, Ravi & Keen, Michael, 1993. "Jeux Sans Frontieres: Tax Competition and Tax Coordination When Countries Differ in Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 877-92, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Michael M. Knetter, 1997. "Goods Prices and Exchange Rates: What Have We Learned?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1243-1272, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Nielsen, Soren Bo, 2001. " A Simple Model of Commodity Taxation and Cross-Border Shopping," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 103(4), pages 599-623, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Goldberg, Pinelopi K. & Verboven, Frank, 2005. "Market integration and convergence to the Law of One Price: evidence from the European car market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 49-73, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Nordblom, Katarina, 2006. "The Complex Attitudes to Alcohol Taxation," Working Papers in Economics 207, Göteborg University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Timothy K.M. Beatty, Erling Røed Larsen and Dag Einar Sommervoll, 2007. "Driven to Drink. Sin Taxes Near a Border," Discussion Papers 507, Research Department of Statistics Norway. [Downloadable!]
  3. Leonzio Rizzo, 2008. "Local government responsiveness to federal transfers: theory and evidence," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 316-337, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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