Prices that end with 9, also known as psychological price points, are common, comprising about 70% of the retail prices. They are also more rigid than other prices. We take advantage of a natural experiment to document an emergence of a new price ending that has the same effects as 9-endings. In...

We explore asymmetries in the way consumers sample prices in a simple sequential search framework. In equilibrium, the price distribution of a firm catering to more local consumers first-order stochastically dominates that of its rival. Prices rise in the degree of asymmetry.

I study the institution of avoiding hiring one’s own Ph.D. graduates for assistant professorships. I argue that this institution is necessary to create better incentives for researchers to incorporate new information in studies, facilitating the convergence to asymptotic learning of the...

We use micro level retail price data from convenience stores to study the link between 0-ending price points and price rigidity during a period of a runaway inflation, when the annual inflation rate was in the range of 60%–430%. Surprisingly, we find that more round prices are less likely to...

In the standard market-microstructure model of Glosten and Milgrom (1985), public information can have negative social value. Equivalently, an increase in informational asymmetry can raise the total surplus from trade.

Presenting a novel model of local shopping, the benefit of monopoly provision due to market size effects is explored. Prices are lower, variety and aggregate consumer surplus higher, than local shopping but many shoppers’ utility falls. Policymakers should take care.

The paper develops a housing deep-habit model to explore linkages between macroeconomic decisions and asset pricing of nondurable and housing goods. Owing to heterogeneous characteristics of housing assets, the model sheds insights into the counter-cyclical property of housing markups.

Opportunities for shrouded pricing drive down upfront price as firms compete to capture new customers. Unless the surcharge is sufficiently high, consumers are worse off if the practice is banned, assuming Cournot–Nash equilibrium and isoelastic demand.

We compare different industry concentration ratios based on the Standard Industry Classification (SIC) system to ratios based on the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) system and demonstrate through the analysis of industry markups that GICS-based measures are better proxies for the...

We report results from a decentralized bargaining market experiment conducted with farmers and students. Our results indicate that despite its bad reputation, performance is highly efficient (although not as efficient as the competitive equilibrium prediction). Farmers and students perform...