The so called flat-rate bias is a well documented phenomenon caused by consumers’ desire to be insured against fluctuations in their billing amounts. This paper shows that expectation-based loss aversion provides a formal explanation for this bias. We solve for the optimal two-part tariff when...

We examine welfare effects of real-time pricing in electricity markets. Before stochastic energy demand is known, competitive retailers contract with final consumers who exogenously do not have real-time meters. After demand is realized, two electricity generators compete in a uniform price...

We explore how pricing dynamics in the European airline industry vary with the competitive environment. Our results highlight substantial variations in pricing dynamics that are consistent with a theory of intertemporal price discrimination. First, the rate at which prices increase towards the...

This paper analyses the effect of antidumping (AD) duties on the pricing behaviour of exporters targeted with these measures. Using product and firm-level data for South Korea, the study provides evidence of increased export unit values and firms' markups following the imposition of AD ad...

According to static models of industrial organization, a rise in competition decreases prices. In this paper, I test whether this conclusion can be reversed in the mobile telecommunications markets where dynamic efficiency effects might be significant. The empirical test relies on the change in...

The so called flat-rate bias is a well documented phenomenon caused by consumers; desire to be insured against fluctuations in their billing amounts. This paper shows that expectation-based loss aversion provides a formal explanation for this bias. We solve for the optimal two-part tariff when...

We investigate the impact of consumer search and competition on pricing strategies in Germany’s electricity retail. We utilize a unique panel dataset on spatially varying search requests at major online price comparison websites to construct a direct measure of search intensity and combine...

This paper studies the relationship between horizontal product differentiation and the welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination in oligopoly. By deriving linear demand from a representative consumer's utility and focusing on the symmetric equilibrium of a pricing game, we...

Based upon a large fraction of the price records used for computing the French CPI, we document consumer price rigidity in France. We first provide a methodological discussion of issues involved in estimating average price duration with micro-data. The average duration of prices in the sectors...

This paper provides some new empirical features on price setting behaviour for French producers using micro data underlying the producer and business-services price indices over the period 1994-2005. Some crucial methodological issues on the collection of producer prices are raised. Then, the...