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Price Dispersion in the Lab and on the Internet: Theory and Evidence

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Author Info
Michael R. Baye (Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University Kelley School of Business)
John Morgan (University of California at Berkeley)

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Abstract

Price dispersion is ubiquitous in settings that closely approximate textbook Bertrand competition. We show (Propositions 2 and 3) that only a little bounded rationality among sellers is needed to rationalize such dispersion. A variety of statistical tests, based on data sets from two independent laboratory experiments and structural estimates of the parameters of our models, suggest that bounded rationality based theories of price dispersion organize the data remarkably well. Evidence is also presented which suggests that the models are consistent with data from a leading Internet price comparison site.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy in its series Working Papers with number 2004-02.

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Date of creation: 2004
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Publication status: Published in Rand Journal of Economics, 2004
Handle: RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2004-02

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Related research
Keywords: Price dispersion;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
M3 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Marketing and Advertising

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. David, Douglas D & Holt, Charles A, 1996. "Consumer Search Costs and Market Performance," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 133-51, January.
  2. Gladys López-Acevedo, 1997. "Quantal response equilibria for posted offer-markets," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 12(2), pages 95-131.
  3. Pratt, John W & Wise, David A & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1979. "Price Differences in Almost Competitive Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 189-211, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan & Patrick Scholten, 2004. "Price Dispersion in the Small and in the Large: Evidence from an Internet Price Comparison Site," Working Papers 2004-03, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Burdett, Kenneth & Judd, Kenneth L, 1983. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 955-69, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2001. "Information Gatekeepers on the Internet and the Competitiveness of Homogeneous Product Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 454-474, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Villas-Boas, J Miguel, 1995. "Models of Competitive Price Promotions: Some Empirical Evidence from the Coffee and Saltine Crackers Markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 85-107, Spring.
  8. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Reinganum, Jennifer F, 1979. "A Simple Model of Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 851-58, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. McFadden, Daniel L., 1984. "Econometric analysis of qualitative response models," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 24, pages 1395-1457 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Cason, Timothy N. & Friedman, Daniel, 2003. "Buyer search and price dispersion: a laboratory study," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 232-260, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  12. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-59, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Rosenthal, Robert W, 1980. "A Model in Which an Increase in the Number of Sellers Leads to a Higher Price," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(6), pages 1575-79, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Spulber, Daniel F, 1995. "Bertrand Competition When Rivals' Costs Are Unknown," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 1-11, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Maarten C.W. Janssen & José Luis Moraga, 2000. "Pricing, Consumer Search and the Size of Internet Markets," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 00-042/1, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
  16. J. Rupert Gatti, 2000. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion with Sequential Search," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1368, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  17. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gneezy, Uri, 2000. "Price competition and market concentration: an experimental study," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 7-22, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Simon P. Anderson & Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 1998. "Rent Seeking with Bounded Rationality: An Analysis of the All-Pay Auction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 828-853, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Plott, Charles R, 1982. "Industrial Organization Theory and Experimental Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1485-1527, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Alan T. Sorensen, 2000. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion in Retail Markets for Prescription Drugs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 833-862, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

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. Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2006. "Internet Retail Demand: Taxes, Geography, and Online-Offline Competition," NBER Working Papers 12242, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Diego Escobari & Li Gan, 2007. "Price Dispersion under Costly Capacity and Demand Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 13075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Michael R. Baye & J. Rupert J. Gatti & Paul Kattuman & John Morgan, 2005. "Did the Euro Foster Online Price Competition? Evidence from an International Price Comparison Site," Working Papers 2005-09, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Teck H. Ho & Noah Lim & Colin Camerer, 2005. "Modeling the Psychology of Consumer and Firm Behavior with Behavioral Economics," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000476, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Philip A. Haile & Ali Hortacsu & Grigory Kosenok, 2003. "On the Empirical Content of Quantal Response Equilibrium," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1432, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Maarten C.W. Janssen & José Luis Moraga-González & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2004. "Consumer Search and Oligopolistic Pricing: An Empirical Investigation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-071/1, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2005. "Brand and Price Advertising in Online Markets," Working Papers 2005-08, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Ludovic Renou & Karl Schlag, 2008. "Minimax regret and strategic uncertainty," Economics Working Papers 1087, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2005. "Probabilistic Patents," Microeconomics 0504004, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  10. Tülin Erdem & Kannan Srinivasan & Wilfred Amaldoss & Patrick Bajari & Hai Che & Teck Ho & Wes Hutchinson & Michael Katz & Michael Keane & Robert Meyer & Peter Reiss, 2005. "Theory-Driven Choice Models," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 225-237, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Sun, Ching-jen, 2005. "Dynamic Price Dispersion in a Bertrand-Edgeworth Model," MPRA Paper 9854, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2007. [Downloadable!]
  12. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan & Patrick Scholten, 2006. "Information, Search, and Price Dispersion," Working Papers 2006-11, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy. [Downloadable!]
  13. Juan Feng, 2004. "Optimal Allocation Mechanisms When Bidders Ranking for the objects is common," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 545, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  14. Sha Luo, 2009. "Price Dispersion in the Online Auction Markets," EERI Research Paper Series EERI_RP_2009_07, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI). [Downloadable!]
  15. Chen, Yongmin & Zhang, Tianle, 2009. "Equilibrium price dispersion with heterogeneous searchers," MPRA Paper 16490, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  16. Wilfred Amaldoss & Teck-Hua Ho & Aradhna Krishna & Kay-Yut Chen & Preyas Desai & Ganesh Iyer & Sanjay Jain & Noah Lim & John Morgan & Ryan Oprea & Joydeep Srivasatava, 2008. "Experiments on strategic choices and markets," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 417-429, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Michael Rauh, 2005. "Complementarity, Search, and Price Dispersion," Game Theory and Information 0508008, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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