IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v91y2007i1-2p141-157.html

Demand and distance: Evidence on cross-border shopping

Author

Listed:
  • Asplund, Marcus
  • Friberg, Richard
  • Wilander, Fredrik

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.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Asplund, Marcus & Friberg, Richard & Wilander, Fredrik, 2007. "Demand and distance: Evidence on cross-border shopping," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 141-157, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:91:y:2007:i:1-2:p:141-157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-2727(06)00065-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    2. 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.
    3. Søren Bo Nielsen, 2001. "A Simple Model of Commodity Taxation and Cross‐border Shopping," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(4), pages 599-623, December.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Austan Goolsbee, 2000. "In a World Without Borders: The Impact of Taxes on Internet Commerce," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 561-576.
    7. Jack Mintz & Henry Tulkens, 2006. "Commodity Tax Competition Between Member States of a Federation: Equilibrium and Efficiency," Springer Books, in: Parkash Chander & Jacques Drèze & C. Knox Lovell & Jack Mintz (ed.), Public goods, environmental externalities and fiscal competition, chapter 0, pages 449-489, Springer.
    8. Baltagi, Badi H & Griffin, James M, 1995. "A Dynamic Demand Model for Liquor: The Case for Pooling," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(3), pages 545-554, August.
    9. Jeffrey R. Campbell & Beverly Lapham, 2004. "Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations and the Dynamics of Retail Trade Industries on the U. S.-Canada Border," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1194-1206, September.
    10. Mr. Michael Keen, 2002. "Some International Issues in Commodity Taxation," IMF Working Papers 2002/124, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Walsh, Michael J. & Jones, Jonathan D., 1988. "More Evidence on the "Border Tax" Effect: The Case of West Virginia, 1979-84," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 41(2), pages 261-65, June.
    12. Joris Pinkse & Margaret E. Slade & Craig Brett, 2002. "Spatial Price Competition: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 1111-1153, May.
    13. Asplund, Marcus & Friberg, Richard & Wilander, Fredrik, 2007. "Demand and distance: Evidence on cross-border shopping," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 141-157, February.
    14. Jonathan Haskel & Holger Wolf, 2001. "The Law of One Price—A Case Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(4), pages 545-558, December.
    15. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996. "How Wide Is the Border?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-1125, December.
    16. repec:bla:scandj:v:103:y:2001:i:4:p:545-58 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. 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 877-892, September.
    18. Cook, Philip J. & Moore, Michael J., 2000. "Alcohol," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 30, pages 1629-1673, Elsevier.
    19. Pogue, Thomas F & Sgontz, Larry G, 1989. "Taxing to Control Social Costs: The Case of Alcohol," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 235-243, March.
    20. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andrés Leal & Julio López-Laborda & Fernando Rodrigo, 2010. "Cross-Border Shopping: A Survey," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 16(2), pages 135-148, May.
    2. Leal, Andrés & López-Laborda, Julio & Rodrigo, Fernando, 2009. "Prices, taxes and automotive fuel cross-border shopping," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 225-234.
    3. repec:kap:iaecre:v:16:y:2010:i:2:p:135-148 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Rossitza B. Wooster & Joshua W. Lehner, 2010. "Reexamining The Border Tax Effect: A Case Study Of Washington State," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(4), pages 511-523, October.
    5. Behrens, Kristian & Hamilton, Jonathan H. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Thisse, Jacques-François, 2009. "Commodity tax competition and industry location under the destination and the origin principle," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 422-433, July.
    6. Agrawal, David R., 2014. "LOST in America: Evidence on local sales taxes from national panel data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 147-163.
    7. Aiura, Hiroshi & Ogawa, Hikaru, 2013. "Unit tax versus ad valorem tax: A tax competition model with cross-border shopping," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 30-38.
    8. Ghoddusi, Hamed & Rafizadeh, Nima & Rahmati, Mohammad H., 2018. "Price elasticity of gasoline smuggling: A semi-structural estimation approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 171-185.
    9. Thomas Y. Mathä & Alessandro Porpiglia & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2017. "Cross-border commuting and consuming: an empirical investigation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(20), pages 2011-2026, April.
    10. Alam, Md. Rafayet & Morshed, A.K.M. Mahbub, 2021. "Price dispersion across U.S. cities: The role of Walmart," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 227-237.
    11. Thomas Mathä, 2003. "What to expect of the euro? Analysing price differences of individual products in Luxembourg and its surrounding regions," BCL working papers 8, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    12. repec:mea:meawpa:14284 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Gita Gopinath & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Chang-Tai Hsieh & Nicholas Li, 2011. "International Prices, Costs, and Markup Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2450-2486, October.
    14. Friberg, Richard & Paterson, Robert W. & Richardson, Andrew D., 2011. "Why is there a Home Bias? A Case Study of Wine," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 37-66, January.
    15. David Agrawal, 2012. "Games within borders: are geographically differentiated taxes optimal?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 574-597, August.
    16. Wang, Lingxiao & Zheng, Yuqing, 2024. "Why are grocery foods taxed in the United States? Theory and spatial evidence from multilevel government interactions," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    17. Behrens, Kristian & Hamilton, Jonathan H. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2007. "Commodity tax harmonization and the location of industry," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 271-291, July.
    18. Thomas M. Fullerton & Adam G. Walke, 2019. "Cross-Border Shopping and Employment Patterns in the Southwestern United States," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(03), pages 1-19, October.
    19. Jørgen Aasness & Odd Nygård, 2014. "Revenue functions and Dupuit curves for indirect taxes with cross-border shopping," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(2), pages 272-297, April.
    20. Kojun Hamada, 2022. "Commodity tax competition and cross-border shopping in a tripoint model," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 837-862, June.
    21. Richard Friberg & Frode Steen & Simen A. Ulsaker, 2022. "Hump-Shaped Cross-Price Effects and the Extensive Margin in Cross-Border Shopping," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 408-438, May.
    22. Birg, Laura, 2018. "Cross-border or Online - Tax Competition with Mobile Consumers under Destination and Origin Principle," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181645, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    More about this item

    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, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    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:pubeco:v:91:y:2007:i:1-2:p:141-157. 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/inca/505578 .

    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.