This paper uses store-level data on consumer liquor revenues and volume sales in Oregon to estimate the effect of state tax differentials on consumer demand. Liquor privatization in Washington led to higher prices from new taxes. I calculate the impact of tax incidence on tax avoidance using...

Electronic shelf label (ESL) is an emerging price display technology around the world. While these new technologies require non-trivial investments by the retailer, they also promise significant operational efficiencies in the form of savings in material, labor and managerial costs. The presumed...

We report that the price of a 6.5oz Coke was 5¢ from 1886 until 1959. Thus, we are documenting a nominal price rigidity that lasted more than 70 years! The case of Coca-Cola is particularly interesting because during the 70-year period there were substantial changes in the soft drink industry...

Considerable evidence demonstrates that significant dispersion exists in the prices charged for seemingly homogeneous goods. This paper adopts a simple, flexible equilibrium model of search to investigate the way the market structure influences price dispersion. Using the noisy search approach,...

This paper studies price competition between experts and discounters in a market for credence goods. While experts can identify a consumer’s problem by exerting costly but unobservable diagnosis effort, discounters just sell treatments without giving any advice. The unobservability of...

This article studies the use of different distribution channels as an instrument of price discrimination in credence goods markets. In credence goods markets, where consumers do not know which quality of the good or service they need, price discrimination proceeds along the dimension of quality...

Television is the dominant entertainment medium for hundreds of millions. This chapter surveys the economic forces that determine the production and consumption of this content. It presents recent trends in television and online video markets, both in the US and internationally, and describes...

As it has rightfully been recognized by China's central government, successful urbanization will be decisive for the nation's future development. Key challenges will be to realize urbanization economies, improve production and innovation capabilities, direct urban and suburban growth and improve...

Consider a society with a finite number of individuals. A coalition structure is a partition of the set of individuals. Each individual has personal preferences over the set of all coalition structures. We study the strategy proof core and von Neumann and Morgenstern (vN&M) solutions. A roommate...

This introductory essay briefly summarizes the eleven empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank's Inflation Persistence Network.