IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/asieco/v61y2019icp34-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Price convergence among Indian cities: The role of linguistic differences, topography, and aggregation

Author

Listed:
  • Kitenge, Erick M.
  • Morshed, A.K.M. Mahbub

Abstract

This study examines the validity of the Law of One Price (LOP) by using monthly retail price data for 24 commodities across 78 locations for the period January 2007–December 2017 in the linguistically and topographically diverse India. We focus on the influence of communication costs and transportation costs on market integration and price convergence. Using panel unit root tests, we find that lower communication costs, due to commonly spoken languages, and lower transportation costs, resulting either from shorter geographic distances or from lower variations in topographical features across locations, yield faster rates of price convergence. Furthermore, the level of aggregation of data is crucial in testing the LOP. “Aggregation bias” refers to empirical findings of goods-level data yielding faster convergence than aggregate price indices. We observe signs of aggregation bias in price convergence in India.

Suggested Citation

  • Kitenge, Erick M. & Morshed, A.K.M. Mahbub, 2019. "Price convergence among Indian cities: The role of linguistic differences, topography, and aggregation," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 34-50.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:61:y:2019:i:c:p:34-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2019.02.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049007818301337
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.asieco.2019.02.002?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. Melitz, Jacques & Toubal, Farid, 2014. "Native language, spoken language, translation and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 351-363.
    2. Jean Imbs & Haroon Mumtaz & Morten O. Ravn & Hélène Rey, 2005. "PPP Strikes Back: Aggregation And the Real Exchange Rate," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(1), pages 1-43.
    3. Redding, Stephen J. & Turner, Matthew A., 2015. "Transportation Costs and the Spatial Organization of Economic Activity," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1339-1398, Elsevier.
    4. Shiu-Sheng Chen & Charles Engel, 2005. "Does 'Aggregation Bias' Explain The Ppp Puzzle?," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 49-72, February.
    5. David Atkin, 2013. "Trade, Tastes, and Nutrition in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1629-1663, August.
    6. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996. "How Wide Is the Border?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-1125, December.
    7. Dave Donaldson & Richard Hornbeck, 2016. "Railroads and American Economic Growth: A "Market Access" Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(2), pages 799-858.
    8. Stephen G. Cecchetti & Nelson C. Mark & Robert J. Sonora, 2002. "Price Index Convergence Among United States Cities," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1081-1099, November.
    9. Janet Ceglowski, 2003. "The law of one price: intranational evidence for Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 36(2), pages 373-400, May.
    10. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Lai, Kon S., 2000. "On cross-country differences in the persistence of real exchange rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 375-397, April.
    11. Sekhar, C.S.C., 2012. "Agricultural market integration in India: An analysis of select commodities," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 309-322.
    12. MarioJ. Crucini & Mototsugu Shintani & Takayuki Tsuruga, 2010. "The Law of One Price without the Border: The Role of Distance versus Sticky Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 462-480, May.
    13. Aker, Jenny C. & Klein, Michael W. & O'Connell, Stephen A. & Yang, Muzhe, 2014. "Borders, ethnicity and trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-16.
    14. Mario J. Crucini & Chris I. Telmer & Marios Zachariadis, 2005. "Understanding European Real Exchange Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 724-738, June.
    15. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew D. Mellinger, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 22(2), pages 179-232, August.
    16. Aye, G.C. & Goswami, S. & Gupta, R., 2013. "Metropolitan House Prices In Regions of India: Do They Converge?," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 13(1), pages 135-144.
    17. Parsley, David C. & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2001. "Explaining the border effect: the role of exchange rate variability, shipping costs, and geography," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 87-105, October.
    18. Antonio Ciccone & Marek Jarociński, 2010. "Determinants of Economic Growth: Will Data Tell?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 222-246, October.
    19. Samarjit Das & Kaushik Bhattacharya, 2008. "Price convergence across regions in India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 299-313, March.
    20. David C. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 1996. "Convergence to the Law of One Price Without Trade Barriers or Currency Fluctuations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 111(4), pages 1211-1236.
    21. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Mellinger, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," CID Working Papers 1, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    22. Dave Donaldson, 2015. "The Gains from Market Integration," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 619-647, August.
    23. Jenny C. Aker & Isaac M. Mbiti, 2010. "Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 207-232, Summer.
    24. Mesbah Motamed & Raymond Florax & William Masters, 2014. "Agriculture, transportation and the timing of urbanization: Global analysis at the grid cell level," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 339-368, September.
    25. Gallup, John L. & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Mellinger, Andrew, "undated". "Geography and Economic Development," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics geodata, Boston College Department of Economics.
    26. Crucini, Mario J. & Shintani, Mototsugu, 2008. "Persistence in law of one price deviations: Evidence from micro-data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 629-644, April.
    27. Raghbendra Jha & K. V. Bhanu Murthy & Anurag Sharma, 2008. "Market Integration in Wholesale Rice Markets in India," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Raghbendra Jha (ed.), The Indian Economy Sixty Years After Independence, chapter 13, pages 233-246, Palgrave Macmillan.
    28. C. Simon Fan & Xiangdong Wei, 2006. "The Law of One Price: Evidence from the Transitional Economy of China," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 682-697, November.
    29. Janet Ceglowski, 2003. "The law of one price: intranational evidence for Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 373-400, May.
    30. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Mellinger, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," CID Working Papers 01A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    31. Carol H. Shiue, 2002. "Transport Costs and the Geography of Arbitrage in Eighteenth-Century China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1406-1419, December.
    32. Jenny C. Aker, 2010. "Information from Markets Near and Far: Mobile Phones and Agricultural Markets in Niger," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 46-59, July.
    33. Gallup, John & Sachs, Jeffrey, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) Papers 294434, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government.
    34. Gallup, J.L. & Sachs, J.D. & Mullinger, A., 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," Papers 1, Chicago - Graduate School of Business.
    35. David Fielding & Christopher Hajzler & James Macgee, 2015. "Distance, Language, Religion, and the Law of One Price: Evidence from Canada and Nigeria," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(5), pages 1007-1029, August.
    36. Morshed, A.K.M. Mahbub & Ahn, Sung K. & Lee, Minsoo, 2006. "Price convergence among Indian cities: A cointegration approach," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 1030-1043, December.
    37. Dreger Christian & Kosfeld Reinhold, 2010. "Do Regional Price Levels Converge?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 230(3), pages 274-286, June.
    38. Mahbub Morshed, A.K.M., 2007. "Is there really a "border effect"?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1229-1238, November.
    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. Sanusi, Olajide I. & Safi, Samir K. & Adeeko, Omotara & Tabash, Mosab I., 2022. "Forecasting agricultural commodity price using different models: a case study of widely consumed grains in Nigeria," Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, vol. 8(2), June.
    2. Venera Timiryanova & Irina Lakman & Vadim Prudnikov & Dina Krasnoselskaya, 2022. "Spatial Dependence of Average Prices for Product Categories and Its Change over Time: Evidence from Daily Data," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, December.
    3. Mustafa Çakır, 2023. "Regional inflation spillovers in Turkey," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 959-980, April.
    4. Kumar, Satish, 2022. "Speed of adjustment in energy and metal prices: Evidence from India," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    5. Kitenge, Erick, 2022. "Determinants of entries into and exits from the US farming sector," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 379-385.
    6. Kitenge, Erick & Alam, Md Rafayet & Sameem, Sediq, 2019. "Convergence of U.S. suicide rates: What does it imply?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 300-306.

    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. Saileshsingh Gunessee & Cheng Zhang, 2022. "The economics of domestic market integration," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1069-1095, September.
    2. M. Ege Yazgan & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2016. "High versus low inflation: implications for price-level convergence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1527-1563, June.
    3. Crucini, Mario J. & Shintani, Mototsugu, 2008. "Persistence in law of one price deviations: Evidence from micro-data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 629-644, April.
    4. Bruce Cater & Byron Lew, 2018. "The impact of climate on the law of one price: A test using North American food prices from the 1920s," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(4), pages 1191-1220, November.
    5. Matthew Delventhal, 2019. "The Globe as a Network: Geography and the Origins of the World Income Distribution," 2019 Meeting Papers 840, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Linda Tesar, 2005. "A Re-Examination of the Border Effect," NBER Working Papers 11706, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Elberg, Andrés, 2016. "Sticky prices and deviations from the Law of One Price: Evidence from Mexican micro-price data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 191-203.
    8. Iftekhar Hasan & Roman Horvath & Jan Mares, 2018. "What Type of Finance Matters for Growth? Bayesian Model Averaging Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 32(2), pages 383-409.
    9. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz & Rembert De Blander, 2009. "Price convergence in the European Union and in the New Member States," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 40(2), pages 37-59.
    11. Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2014. "Regional Growth and Regional Decline," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 683-779, Elsevier.
    12. Andres Elberg, 2014. "Temporal Aggregation and Convergence to the Law of One Price: Evidence from Micro Data," Working Papers 53, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad Diego Portales.
    13. LAN, Yuexing & SYLWESTER, Kevin, 2010. "Does the law of one price hold in China? Testing price convergence using disaggregated data," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 224-236, June.
    14. Selen Sarisoy Guerin, 2006. "The Role of Geography in Financial and Economic Integration: A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Direct Investment, Trade and Portfolio Investment Flows," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 189-209, February.
    15. Caglayan, Mustafa & Filiztekin, Alpay, 2012. "The law of one price and the role of market structure," MPRA Paper 36975, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Eriṣ, Mehmet N. & Ulaṣan, Bülent, 2013. "Trade openness and economic growth: Bayesian model averaging estimate of cross-country growth regressions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 867-883.
    17. Choi, Chi-Young & Matsubara, Kiyoshi, 2007. "Heterogeneity in the persistence of relative prices: What do the Japanese cities tell us?," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 260-286, June.
    18. Yin-Wong Cheung & Eiji Fujii, 2008. "Deviations from the Law of One Price in Japan," CESifo Working Paper Series 2275, CESifo.
    19. Sylvie Démurger & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Wing Thye Woo & Shuming Bao & Gene Chang & Andrew Mellinger, 2002. "Geography, Economic Policy, and Regional Development in China," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 146-197.
    20. Burhan Can Karahasan & Firat Bilgel, 2018. "Economic Geography, Growth Dynamics and Human Capital Accumulation in Turkey: Evidence from Regional and Micro Data," Working Papers 1233, Economic Research Forum, revised 10 Oct 2018.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Law of one price; Price convergence; Market integration; Language; Topography; Aggregation bias; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

    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:eee:asieco:v:61:y:2019:i:c:p:34-50. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/asieco .

    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.