IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9074.html

Some searches may not work properly. We apologize for the inconvenience.

   My bibliography  Save this paper

Promotion Ban and Heterogeneity in Retail Prices during the Great Lockdown

Author

Listed:
  • Jean Hindriks
  • Leonardo Madio
  • Valerio Serse

Abstract

We study the impact of the Belgium lockdown on retail prices using a unique dataset tracking daily prices and promotions for various products in different stores and retail chains. Two distinctive features of our analysis are the ban on promotions during the first two weeks of the lockdown, and the presence of local pricing retail chains (LP) competing with uniform (national) pricing retail chains (UP). We decompose the price changes into the regular price, the frequency, and the size of promotions. The sale price (i.e., the price paid by consumer purchasing on “sale”) increased by 7% within two weeks and by 2.5% within three months. We then provide an heterogeneity analysis of the regular price variation across stores, retailers, products, and over time. We show that LP chains reacted the most to the lockdown with spatial heterogeneity. The heterogeneity in price response also suggests that the price increase was not driven by cost inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean Hindriks & Leonardo Madio & Valerio Serse, 2021. "Promotion Ban and Heterogeneity in Retail Prices during the Great Lockdown," CESifo Working Paper Series 9074, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9074
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9074.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keane, Michael & Neal, Timothy, 2021. "Consumer panic in the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(1), pages 86-105.
    2. Etienne Gagnon & David López-Salido, 2020. "Small Price Responses to Large Demand Shocks," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 792-828.
    3. Alberto Cavallo, 2017. "Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-channel Retailers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(1), pages 283-303, January.
    4. Einav, Liran & Leibtag, Ephraim S. & Nevo, Aviv, 2008. "On the Accuracy of Nielsen Homescan Data," Economic Research Report 56490, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Rachel Griffith & Martin O'Connell & Kate Smith, 2016. "Shopping Around: How Households Adjusted Food Spending Over the Great Recession," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(330), pages 247-280, April.
    6. Martin O'Connell & Áureo de Paula & Kate Smith, 2021. "Preparing for a pandemic: spending dynamics and panic buying during the COVID‐19 first wave," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 249-264, June.
    7. Günter J. Hitsch & Ali Hortaçsu & Xiliang Lin, 2019. "Prices and Promotions in U.S. Retail Markets: Evidence from Big Data," NBER Working Papers 26306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Ivancic, Lorraine & Erwin Diewert, W. & Fox, Kevin J., 2011. "Scanner data, time aggregation and the construction of price indexes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(1), pages 24-35, March.
    9. Iñaki Aguirre & Simon Cowan & John Vickers, 2010. "Monopoly Price Discrimination and Demand Curvature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1601-1615, September.
    10. Kaplan, Greg & Schulhofer-Wohl, Sam, 2017. "Inflation at the household level," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 19-38.
    11. Alberto Cavallo, 2024. "Inflation with Covid Consumption Baskets," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 72(2), pages 902-917, June.
    12. Surico, Paolo & Känzig, Diego & Hacıoğlu Hoke, Sinem, 2020. "Consumption in the time of Covid-19: Evidence from UK transaction data," CEPR Discussion Papers 14733, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Orbach, Barak Y. & Einav, Liran, 2007. "Uniform prices for differentiated goods: The case of the movie-theater industry," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 129-153.
    14. W. Erwin Diewert & Kevin J. Fox, 2020. "Measuring Real Consumption and CPI Bias under Lockdown Conditions," NBER Working Papers 27144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Justin P. Johnson, 2017. "Unplanned Purchases and Retail Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(3), pages 931-965, March.
    16. Stefano DellaVigna & Matthew Gentzkow, 2019. "Uniform Pricing in U.S. Retail Chains," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2011-2084.
    17. Pascal Seiler, 2020. "Weighting bias and inflation in the time of COVID-19: evidence from Swiss transaction data," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 156(1), pages 1-11, December.
    18. Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Levell & Martin O'Connell, 2020. "Could COVID‐19 Infect the Consumer Prices Index?," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 357-361, June.
    19. Xavier Jaravel, 2019. "The Unequal Gains from Product Innovations: Evidence from the U.S. Retail Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 715-783.
    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. Hindriks, Jean & Madio, Leonardo & Serse, Valerio, 2022. "How do retailers compete on price promotions? Evidence from a temporary promotion ban in Belgium," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2022005, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

    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. Jaravel, Xavier & O'Connell, Martin, 2020. "Real-time price indices: Inflation spike and falling product variety during the Great Lockdown," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Jaravel, Xavier & O'Connell, Martin, 2020. "Inflation Spike and Falling Product Variety during the Great Lockdown," CEPR Discussion Papers 14880, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Xavier Jaravel & Martin O'Connell, 2020. "High‐Frequency Changes in Shopping Behaviours, Promotions and the Measurement of Inflation: Evidence from the Great Lockdown," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 733-755, September.
    4. Martin O'Connell & Pierre Dubois & Rachel Griffith, 2022. "The Use of Scanner Data for Economics Research," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 723-745, August.
    5. Alberto Cavallo, 2024. "Inflation with Covid Consumption Baskets," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 72(2), pages 902-917, June.
    6. Santiago E. Alvarez & Sarah M. Lein, 2020. "Tracking inflation on a daily basis," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 156(1), pages 1-13, December.
    7. Agarwal, Sumit & Chua, Yeow Hwee & Song, Changcheng, 2022. "Inflation expectations of households and the upgrading channel," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 124-138.
    8. Patrick Bajari & Zhihao Cen & Victor Chernozhukov & Manoj Manukonda & Jin Wang & Ramon Huerta & Junbo Li & Ling Leng & George Monokroussos & Suhas Vijaykunar & Shan Wan, 2023. "Hedonic prices and quality adjusted price indices powered by AI," CeMMAP working papers 08/23, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    9. Martin O'Connell & Áureo de Paula & Kate Smith, 2021. "Preparing for a pandemic: spending dynamics and panic buying during the COVID‐19 first wave," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 249-264, June.
    10. David Staines, 2023. "Stochastic Equilibrium the Lucas Critique and Keynesian Economics," Papers 2312.16214, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    11. Kevin J. Fox & Peter Levell & Martin O'Connell, 2023. "Inflation measurement with high frequency data," IFS Working Papers W23/29, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    12. Marcella Nicolini & Claudio A. Piga & Andrea Pozzi, 2023. "From uniform to bespoke prices: Hotel pricing during EURO 2016," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 333-355, September.
    13. Mr. Francesco Grigoli & Evgenia Pugacheva, 2022. "Updating Inflation Weights in the UK and Germany during COVID-19," IMF Working Papers 2022/204, International Monetary Fund.
    14. W. Erwin Diewert & Kevin J. Fox, 2022. "Measuring real consumption and consumer price index bias under lockdown conditions," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 480-502, February.
    15. Heidhues, Paul & Köszegi, Botond, 2018. "Behavioral Industrial Organization," CEPR Discussion Papers 12988, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. O’Connell, Martin & Smith, Kate & Stroud, Rebekah, 2022. "The dietary impact of the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    17. Grigoli, Francesco & Pugacheva, Evgenia, 2024. "COVID-19 inflation weights in the UK and Germany," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. Dong, Xiao, 2022. "Lack of local pricing response in national retail chains during large and localized demand peaks: Evidence from college move-ins and instant noodles," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    19. Diewert W. Erwin & Fox Kevin J., 2022. "Measuring Inflation under Pandemic Conditions," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 255-285, March.
    20. Huw Dixon & Aftab Chowdhury, 2023. "Energy Expenditures and CPI Inflation in 2022: Inflation Was Even Higher Than We Thought," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 550, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Covid-19; pricing; lockdown; retailers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    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:ces:ceswps:_9074. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.