Behavioral economists maintain that addictions such as alcoholism, smoking and over-eating represent examples of present-bias in decision making that is fundamentally irrational. In this article, we develop a model of present bias and apparently hyperbolic discounting that is fully consistent...

Many attribute the rise in obesity since the early 1980's to the overconsumption of fast food. A dynamic model of a different-product industry equilibrium shows that a firm with market power will price below marginal cost in a steady-state equilibrium. A spatial hedonic pricing model is used to...

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tariffs on U.S. potato imports to Mexico were phased out by 1993. Citing phytosanitary issues, in 1996, the Mexican government placed quantitative restrictions on U.S. potato imports and restricted their import only to designated border...

Concerns regarding the safety and integrity of the fresh produce supply chain are becoming all too common in the media. In 2006, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 from farms in Central California sickened almost two hundred people and lead to the deaths of three. Estimated costs to the industry...

Spending on political advertising increases with every election cycle, not only for congressional or presidential candidates, but also for state-level ballot initiatives. There is little research in marketing, however, on the effectiveness of political advertising at this level. In this study,...

We investigate the strategic pricing for leading brands sold in the carbonated soft drink (CSD) market in the context of a flexible demand specification (i.e. random parameter nested logit) and a structural pricing equation. Our approach does not rely upon the often used ad hoc linear...

The existence of price thresholds in grocery retailing is well-documented. Most authors explain the existence of price thresholds using Assimilation-Contrast Theory (ACT), Adaptation Level Theory (ALT) or Prospect Theory (PT). However, each of these theories is untenable if consumers are...

Retailers design pricing strategies that can be characterized as a choice of store price format between offering everyday low prices (EDLP) and high / low prices (HILO). EDLP stores set prices which are constant over time, while HILO stores set prices which are higher than EDLP stores on...