Asymmetric pricing is the phenomenon where prices rise more readily than they fall. We articulate, and provide empirical support for, a theory of asymmetric pricing in wholesale prices. In particular, we show how wholesale prices may be asymmetric in the small but symmetric in the large, when...

In this study, we empirically examine the extent of price rigidity using a unique store-level time series data set - consisting of (i) actual retail transaction prices, (ii) actual wholesale transaction prices which represent both the retailers' costs and the prices received by manufacturers,...

Using unique retail and wholesale price data for 4,532 products carried by a major Midwestern grocery retailer, we find evidence of significant retail price rigidity during the Thanksgiving through Christmas holiday period relative to the rest of the year. We suggest that this pattern of holiday...

We combine two data sets to study price rigidity. The first consists of weekly time series of retail, wholesale, and spot prices for twelve products. These time series contain two exogenous cost shocks. We find that prices exhibit more rigidity in response to the second shock than the first. The...

We study the price adjustment practices and provide quantitative measurement of the managerial and customer costs of price adjustment using data from a large U.S. industrial manufacturer and its customers. We find that price adjustment costs are a much more complex construct than the existing...

Platform sharing across manufacturers has recently become common practice in the automobile industry. Its important objective is to reduce procurement costs by taking advantage of the commonality of components, but this often reduces the degree of product differentiation. We investigate this...

Wine brokers are wholesale intermediaries. They belong to the category of the matchmaker intermediaries. These middlemen are not well known. Their role is to help buyers and sellers of bulk wine to meet and transact. Assuming that wine merchants appeal to brokers because they reduce transaction...

Although most of the predicted consequences of the internet-revolution in the 90s did not become reality, the internet has lead to sustainable hanges in the organization of most industries. In particular, this is true for business-to-business (B2B) relations between firm. An obvious `proof' for...

The financial systems in continental Europe are moving from bank intermediation to intermediation by non-bank institutional investors. The present paper examines to what extent this implies a substitution of relationship finance by arm’s length finance or just of one form of relationship...

The financial systems in continental Europe are subject to profound changes in the institutions of market exchange. Banks traditionally holding close relationships with firms are substituted by non-bank institutional investors. The present paper examines whether this implies a substitution of...