IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fau/wpaper/wp2011_30.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impact of Institutions on Cross-Border Price Dispersion

Author

Abstract

This paper analyzes the role of institutions in price dispersion among cities in the European region in the 1996-2009 period. An overview of the literature on the border effect reveals that the role of institutions is completely neglected. Using the Worldwide Governance Indicators as explanatory variables I find that the better the institutions, the lower the predicted dispersion. The result is robust to different specifications of the regression model and it is consistent with a hypothesis that arbitrage, as an entrepreneurial activity and the main power behind the law of one price, is influenced by institutional quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiøí Schwarz, 2011. "Impact of Institutions on Cross-Border Price Dispersion," Working Papers IES 2011/30, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2011.
  • Handle: RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2011_30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ies.fsv.cuni.cz/default/file/download/id/17338
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2008. "Understanding International Price Differences Using Barcode Data," NBER Working Papers 14017, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 1-43.
    3. Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 647-668, June.
    4. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H, 1996. "How Wide Is the Border?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1112-1125, December.
    5. Bergin, Paul R. & Glick, Reuven, 2007. "Global price dispersion: Are prices converging or diverging?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 703-729, September.
    6. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H., 2001. "Deviations from purchasing power parity: causes and welfare costs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 29-57, October.
    7. Charles Engel & John H. Rogers & Shing-Yi Wang, 2003. "Revisiting the Border: an assessment of the law of one price using very disaggregated consumer price data," International Finance Discussion Papers 777, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Thierry Mayer & Keith Head, 2002. "Illusory Border Effects: Distance Mismeasurement Inflates Estimates of Home Bias in Trade," Working Papers 2002-01, CEPII research center.
    9. Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Hsieh, Chang-Tai & Gopinath, Gita & Li, Nicholas, 2009. "Estimating the Border Effect: Some New Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 7281, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Horváth, Julius & Rátfai, Attila & Döme, Botond, 2008. "The border effect in small open economies," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 33-45, March.
    11. Israel M. Kirzner, 1997. "Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: An Austrian Approach," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 60-85, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Charles Engel & John H. Rogers, 2004. "European product market integration after the euro [‘The law of one price in Scandinavian duty-free stores,’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 19(39), pages 348-384.
    14. 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.
    15. Russell Hillberry & David Hummels, 2003. "Intranational Home Bias: Some Explanations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1089-1092, November.
    16. Volckart, Oliver & Wolf, Nikolaus, 2006. "Estimating Financial Integration in the Middle Ages: What Can We Learn from a TAR Model?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 122-139, March.
    17. James E. Anderson, 1999. "Why Do Nations Trade (So Little)?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 428, Boston College Department of Economics.
    18. Crucini, Mario J. & Shintani, Mototsugu & Tsuruga, Takayuki, 2010. "Accounting for persistence and volatility of good-level real exchange rates: The role of sticky information," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 48-60, May.
    19. DavidC. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "A Prism into the PPP Puzzles: The Micro-Foundations of Big Mac Real Exchange Rates," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1336-1356, October.
    20. Shang-Jin Wei, 1996. "Intra-National versus International Trade: How Stubborn are Nations in Global Integration?," NBER Working Papers 5531, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz, 2008. "Price convergence in the EU—an aggregate and disaggregate approach," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 25-47, July.
    22. 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.
    23. Holger C. Wolf, 2000. "Intranational Home Bias In Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 555-563, November.
    24. José de Sousa & Julie Lochard, 2005. "Do Currency Barriers Solve the Border Effect Puzzle? Evidence from the CFA Franc Zone," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(3), pages 422-441, October.
    25. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Linda L. Tesar, 2009. "Border Effect or Country Effect? Seattle May Not Be So Far from Vancouver After All," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 219-241, January.
    26. Sobel, Russell S., 2008. "Testing Baumol: Institutional quality and the productivity of entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 641-655, November.
    27. Rogers, John H., 2007. "Monetary union, price level convergence, and inflation: How close is Europe to the USA?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 785-796, April.
    28. Nigel F.B. Allington & Paul A. Kattuman & Florian A. Waldmann, 2005. "One Market, One Money, One Price?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(3), December.
    29. Baumol, William J., 1996. "Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 3-22, January.
    30. Chen, Natalie, 2004. "Intra-national versus international trade in the European Union: why do national borders matter?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 93-118, May.
    31. John F. Helliwell, 1996. "Do National Borders Matter for Quebec's Trade?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(3), pages 507-522, August.
    32. McCallum, John, 1995. "National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 615-623, June.
    33. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2010. "The worldwide governance indicators : methodology and analytical issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5430, The World Bank.
    34. Anderson, Michael A & Smith, Stephen L S, 1999. "Do National Borders Really Matter? Canada-US Regional Trade Reconsidered," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 219-227, May.
    35. Ruta Aidis & Saul Estrin, 2006. "Institutions, Networks and Entrepreneurship Development in Russia: An Exploration," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp833, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    36. John F. Helliwell, 1997. "National Borders, Trade and Migration," NBER Working Papers 6027, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz, 2010. "Does One Currency Mean One Price?," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 87-114, March.
    38. Allington, Nigel FB & Kattuman, Paul A & Waldmann, Florian A, 2005. "One Market, One Money, One Price?," MPRA Paper 835, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    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. repec:cnb:ocpubv:rb11/2 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Václav Žďárek, 2011. "Empirická analýza průběhu cenové konvergence ČR a nových členských zemí EU k eurozóně [An Empirical Analysis of Price Convergence of the Czech Republic and the New EU Member States towards the Euro," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2011(4), pages 454-474.
    3. repec:cnb:ocpubv:rb10/2 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:cnb:ocpubv:rb12/1 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:cnb:ocpubv:rb12/2 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:cnb:ocpubv:rb11/1 is not listed 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. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    2. Philipp Maier, 2010. "An Analysis Of International Price Differentials On Ebay," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(3), pages 307-321, July.
    3. Alberto Cavallo & Brent Neiman & Roberto Rigobon, 2014. "Currency Unions, Product Introductions, and the Real Exchange Rate," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 529-595.
    4. Nuria Gallego & Carlos Llano, 2014. "The Border Effect and the Nonlinear Relationship between Trade and Distance," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 1016-1048, November.
    5. Roberto Rigobon & Brent Neiman & Alberto Cavallo, 2013. "Product Introductions, Currency Unions, and the Real Exchange Rate," 2013 Meeting Papers 1357, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Matthias Helble, 2007. "Border Effect Estimates for France and Germany Combining International Trade and Intranational Transport Flows," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 143(3), pages 433-463, October.
    7. Mario J. Crucini & Christopher I. Telmer, 2012. "Microeconomic Sources of Real Exchange Rate Variability," NBER Working Papers 17978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Balaguer, Jacint & Ripollés, Jordi, 2018. "Disentangling the importance of international border effects. Some evidence from Portugal–Spain based on diesel retailers," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 260-269.
    9. Kei-Mu Yi, 2010. "Can Multistage Production Explain the Home Bias in Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 364-393, March.
    10. Wang, Chenglong & Liu, Hui & Zhang, Mengtian & Wei, Zongcai, 2018. "The border effect on urban land expansion in China: The case of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 287-294.
    11. Bruno Versailles, 2012. "Market Integration and Border Effects in Eastern Africa," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2012-01, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Hai Long Vo & Duc Hong Vo, 2023. "The purchasing power parity and exchange‐rate economics half a century on," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 446-479, April.
    13. 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.
    14. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Lafourcade, Miren & Mayer, Thierry, 2005. "The trade-creating effects of business and social networks: evidence from France," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 1-29, May.
    15. Gabriel Felbermayr & Jasmin Gröschl, 2014. "Within U.S. Trade And The Long Shadow Of The American Secession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 382-404, January.
    16. Mario Crucini & Christopher Telmer, 2020. "Microeconomic Sources of Real Exchange Rate Variation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 22-40, October.
    17. Jacint Balaguer & Jordi Ripollés, 2018. "Revisiting the importance of border effect in sub‐national regions. Evidence from a quasi‐experimental design," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(4), pages 1113-1130, November.
    18. Ogrokhina, Olena, 2019. "Persistence of prices in the Eurozone capital cities: Evidence from the Economist Intelligence Unit City Data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 330-338.
    19. Dmitry Kulikov, 2015. "Law of One Price in the euro area: an empirical investigation using Nielsen disaggregated price data," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2014-10, Bank of Estonia, revised 20 Jan 2015.
    20. Daniel L. Millimet & Thomas Osang, 2007. "Do state borders matter for U.S. intranational trade? The role of history and internal migration," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(1), pages 93-126, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    border effect; price dispersion; price convergence; law of one price; institutional quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

    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:fau:wpaper:wp2011_30. 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: Natalie Svarcova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icunicz.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.