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Price-Matching Guarantees

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Author Info
Sridhar Moorthy (University of Toronto)
Ralph Winter (University of British Columbia)

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Abstract

Are price-matching guarantees anticompetitive? This paper examines the incentives for price-matching guarantees in markets where information about prices is costly. Under some conditions the conventional explanation of price-matching announcements as facilitating collusion finds support, and is even strengthened. But our model provides an additional explanation for the practice. A price-matching guarantee may be a credible and easily understood means of communicating to uninformed consumers that a firm is low-priced. The credibility of the signal to uninformed consumers is assured by the behaviour of informed consumers. We contrast the testable implications of our model with those of the anticompetitive theories and discuss supportive evidence from an illustrative sample of retailers.

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File URL: http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=roms
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Berkeley Electronic Press in its series Review of Marketing Science Working Papers with number 2-1-1020.

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Date of creation: 06 Dec 2002
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Handle: RePEc:bep:rmswpp:2-1-1020

Note: oai:bepress:roms-1020
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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. d'Aspremont, C & Gabszewicz, Jean Jaskold & Thisse, J-F, 1979. "On Hotelling's "Stability in Competition"," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1145-50, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Morten Hviid & Greg Shaffer, 1999. "Hassle Costs: The Achilles' Heel of Price-Matching Guarantees," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 8(4), pages 489-521, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Zhiqi Chen, 1995. "How Low Is a Guaranteed-Lowest-Price?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(3), pages 683-701, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Jacquemin, Alexis & Slade, Margaret E., 1989. "Cartels, collusion, and horizontal merger," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 415-473 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
  6. Aaron S. Edlin and Eric R. Emch., 1997. "The Welfare Losses from Price Matching Policies," Economics Working Papers 97-257, University of California at Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Curtis Eaton, B. & Lipsey, Richard G., 1989. "Product differentiation," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 723-768 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Katz, Michael L., 1989. "Vertical contractual relations," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 655-721 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Aaron Edlin, 1995. "Do Guaranteed-Low-Price Policies Guarantee High Prices, and Can Antitrust Rise to the Challenge," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series 1153, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Il-Horn Hann & Kai-Lung Hui & Sang-Yong Tom Lee & Ivan P.L. Png, 2005. "Sales and Promotions: A More General Model," Industrial Organization 0508014, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  2. Subhasish Dugar & Todd Sorensen, 2006. "Hassle Costs, Price-Matching Guarantees and Price Competition: An Experiment," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 359-378, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Datta, Shakun & Offenberg, Jennifer, 2003. "An Experimental Examination of Competitor-Based Price Matching Guarantees," MPRA Paper 575, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 22 Oct 2006. [Downloadable!]
  4. Morten Hviid & Greg Shaffer, 2008. "Matching Own Prices, Rivals' Prices, or Both," Working Papers 08-26, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia. [Downloadable!]
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