IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/acb/cbeeco/2015-624.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Buying Locally

Author

Listed:
  • George J. Mailath
  • Andrew Postlewaite
  • Larry Samuelson

Abstract

“Buy local” arrangements encourage members of a community or group to patronize one another rather than the external economy. They range from formal mechanisms such as local currencies to informal “I’ll buy from you if you buy from me” arrangements, and are often championed on social or environmental grounds. We show that in a monopolistically competitive economy, buy local arrangements can have salutary effects even for selfish agents immune to social or environmental considerations. Buy local arrangements effectively allow firms to exploit the equilibrium price-cost gap to profitably expand their sales at the going price.

Suggested Citation

  • George J. Mailath & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson, 2015. "Buying Locally," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2015-624, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2015-624
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/econ/wp624.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    • George J. Mailath & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson, 2016. "Buying Locally," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1179-1200, November.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barbara A. Good, 1998. "Private money: everything old is new again," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Apr.
    2. Hart, Oliver D, 1985. "Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin: Special Results," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(380), pages 889-908, December.
    3. Wolitzky, Alexander, 2015. "Communication with tokens in repeated games on networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(1), January.
    4. Ellingsen, Tore, 1998. "Payments in Kind," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 244, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 10 Feb 2000.
    5. Kocherlakota, Narayana R., 1998. "Money Is Memory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 232-251, August.
    6. Christine Hauser & Hugo Hopenhayn, 2008. "Trading Favors: Optimal Exchange and Forgiveness," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 88, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    7. Ralph Ossa, 2012. "Profits in the "New Trade" Approach to Trade Negotiations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 466-469, May.
    8. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Kyle Bagwell, 2013. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Favors in Cooperative Relationships," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 213-259, May.
    9. Canice Prendergast & Lars Stole, 2001. "Barter, Liquidity and Market Segmentation," CESifo Working Paper Series 586, CESifo.
    10. Venables, Anthony J, 1987. "Trade and Trade Policy with Differentiated Products: A Chamberlinian-Ricardian Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 700-717, September.
    11. Oliver D. Hart, 1985. "Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin: A General Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 529-546.
    12. Constantinos Syropoulos, 2002. "Optimum Tariffs and Retaliation Revisited: How Country Size Matters," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(3), pages 707-727.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. 'Buying Locally'
      by Mark Thoma in Economist's View on 2015-08-06 17:29:29
    2. “Buying Locally,” G. J. Mailath, A. Postlewaite & L. Samuelson (2015)
      by afinetheorem in A Fine Theorem on 2015-08-07 00:11:55

    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. Olszewski, Wojciech & Safronov, Mikhail, 2018. "Efficient cooperation by exchanging favors," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    2. Olszewski, Wojciech & Safronov, Mikhail, 2018. "Efficient chip strategies in repeated games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    3. Thomas Wiseman, 2015. "A Note on the Essentiality of Money under Limited Memory," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(4), pages 881-893, October.
    4. Di Comite, Francesco & Thisse, Jacques-François & Vandenbussche, Hylke, 2014. "Verti-zontal differentiation in export markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 50-66.
    5. Abbring, Jaap H. & Campbell, Jeffrey R., 2003. "A Structural Empirical Model of Firm Growth, Learning, and Survival," IZA Discussion Papers 781, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Meer, Jonathan, 2014. "Effects of the price of charitable giving: Evidence from an online crowdfunding platform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 113-124.
    7. Batista, Catia & Silverman, Dan & Yang, Dean, 2015. "Directed giving: Evidence from an inter-household transfer experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 2-21.
    8. Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Thisse, Jacques-François, 1999. "Monopolistic Competition, Multiproduct Firms and Optimum Product Diversity," CEPR Discussion Papers 2151, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Jacques-François Thisse & Philip Ushchev, 2018. "Monopolistic competition without apology," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I, chapter 5, pages 93-136, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Felbermayr Gabriel J., 2018. "Zur Rückkehr der Machtpolitik in Handelsfragen: Theoretische Überlegungen und politische Empfehlungen," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 232-244, September.
    11. Dhingra, Swati & Morrow, John, 2017. "Efficiency in large markets with firm heterogeneity," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 718-728.
    12. Cole, Matthew T. & Lake, James & Zissimos, Ben, 2021. "Contesting an international trade agreement," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    13. Swati Dhingra & John Morrow, 2019. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity under Firm Heterogeneity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 196-232.
    14. Christopher S. Yoo, 2017. "Avoiding the Pitfalls of Net Uniformity: Zero Rating and Nondiscrimination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(4), pages 509-536, June.
    15. Osharin Alexander & Verbus Valery, 2015. "Heterogeneous consumers and market structure in a monopolistically competitive setting," EERC Working Paper Series 15/03e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    16. repec:zbw:rwirep:0033 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Vera Ivanova & Philip Ushchev, 2019. "Product Differentiation, Competitive Toughness, and Intertemporal Substitution," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 1244-1269, July.
    18. Gu, Yiquan & Wenzel, Tobias, 2009. "A note on the excess entry theorem in spatial models with elastic demand," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 567-571, September.
    19. Parenti, Mathieu, 2018. "Large and small firms in a global market: David vs. Goliath," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 103-118.
    20. Tarek Selim, 2006. "On Equilibrium Number of Firms," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 34(4), pages 505-506, December.
    21. Maggi, Giovanni, 2014. "International Trade Agreements," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 317-390, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Buy local; local currency; trading favors; reciprocity; monopolistic competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:acb:cbeeco:2015-624. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feanuau.html .

    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.