IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-24-00103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Price Gauging or Market Forces? Fairness Perceptions of Price Hikes during the Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Avichai Snir

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Daniel Levy

    (Bar-Ilan University, Emory University, ICEA, ISET at TSU, and RCEA)

  • Dudi Levy

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Haipeng Allan Chen

    (University of Iowa)

Abstract

We report the results of surveys we conducted in the US and Israel in 2020, a time when many prices increased following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess respondents' fairness perceptions of price increases, we focus on goods whose prices have increased during the pandemic, including some essential goods. Consistent with the principle of dual entitlement, we find that respondents perceive price increases as more fair if they are due to cost shocks than if they are due to demand shocks. However, we also find large differences across the two populations, as well as across goods.

Suggested Citation

  • Avichai Snir & Daniel Levy & Dudi Levy & Haipeng Allan Chen, 2024. "Price Gauging or Market Forces? Fairness Perceptions of Price Hikes during the Pandemic," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(4), pages 1291-1325.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-24-00103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2024/Volume44/EB-24-V44-I4-P102.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1986. "Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 285-300, October.
    2. William J. Allender & Jura Liaukonyte & Sherif Nasser & Timothy J. Richards, 2021. "Price Fairness and Strategic Obfuscation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 122-146, January.
    3. Luís Cabral & Lei Xu, 2021. "Seller reputation and price gouging: Evidence from the COVID‐19 pandemic," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 867-879, July.
    4. Levy, Daniel & Young, Andrew T., 2004. ""The Real Thing:" Nominal Price Rigidity of the Nickel Coke, 1886-1959," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 36(4 (Specia), pages 765-799.
    5. Young, Andrew T. & Levy, Daniel, 2014. "Explicit Evidence of an Implicit Contract," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 804-832.
    6. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard, 1986. "Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 728-741, September.
    7. Bolton, Lisa E & Warlop, Luk & Alba, Joseph W, 2003. "Consumer Perceptions of Price (Un)Fairness," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 29(4), pages 474-491, March.
    8. Urbany, Joel E & Dickson, Peter R & Wilkie, William L, 1989. "Buyer Uncertainty and Information Search," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(2), pages 208-215, September.
    9. Leibbrandt, Andreas, 2020. "Behavioral constraints on price discrimination: Experimental evidence on pricing and customer antagonism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    10. Chaim Fershtman & Uri Gneezy, 2001. "Discrimination in a Segmented Society: An Experimental Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 351-377.
    11. Frey, Bruno S. & Pommerehne, Werner W., 1993. "On the fairness of pricing -- An empirical survey among the general population," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 295-307, April.
    12. Eric T. Anderson & Duncan I. Simester, 2010. "Price Stickiness and Customer Antagonism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 729-765.
    13. Igal Hendel & Saul Lach & Yossi Spiegel, 2017. "Consumers' activism: the cottage cheese boycott," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(4), pages 972-1003, December.
    14. Ruffle, Bradley J. & Sherman, Arie & Shtudiner, Zeev, 2022. "Gender and beauty price discrimination in produce markets," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Levy & Andrew T. Young, 2021. "Promise, trust, and betrayal: Costs of breaching an implicit contract," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(3), pages 1031-1051, January.
    2. Richards, Timothy J. & Liaukonyte, Jura & Streletskaya, Nadia A., 2016. "Personalized pricing and price fairness," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 138-153.
    3. Pick, Doreén & Zielke, Stephan, 2015. "How electricity providers communicate price increases – A qualitative analysis of notification letters," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 303-314.
    4. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Meissner, Stefan & Tungodden, Bertil, 2023. "Cancel the deal? An experimental study on the exploitation of irrational consumers," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 6/2023, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    5. Huang, Jen-Hung & Chang, Ching-Te & Chen, Cathy Yi-Hsuan, 2005. "Perceived fairness of pricing on the Internet," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 343-361, June.
    6. Andreas Leibbrandt, 2016. "Behavioral Constraints on Pricing: Experimental Evidence on Price Discrimination and Customer Antagonism," CESifo Working Paper Series 6214, CESifo.
    7. Kemp, Simon & Bolle, Friedel, 1999. "Preferences in distributing scarce goods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 105-120, February.
    8. Hessel Oosterbeek & Randolph Sloof & Gijs van de Kuilen, 2004. "Cultural Differences in Ultimatum Game Experiments: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(2), pages 171-188, June.
    9. van der Heijden, Eline C. M. & Nelissen, Jan H. M. & Verbon, Harrie A. A., 1997. "Altruism and fairness in a public pension system," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 505-518, April.
    10. Bruno S. Frey & David A. Savage & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Behavior under Extreme Conditions: The Titanic Disaster," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 209-222, Winter.
    11. Konow, James, 1996. "A positive theory of economic fairness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 13-35, October.
    12. Fabrice Larceneux & Thomas Lefebvre, 2016. "The " Bad Deal " Illusion," Post-Print halshs-01671084, HAL.
    13. Snir, Avichai & (Allan) Chen, Haipeng & Levy, Daniel, 2022. "Zero-ending prices, cognitive convenience, and price rigidity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 519-542.
    14. Frank Huber & Frederik Meyer & Kai Vollhardt & Tobias Heußler, 2011. "Die Bedeutung von Emotionen für die wahrgenommene Fairness bei Preiserhöhungen," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 404-426, June.
    15. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:3:p:214-226 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Pillai, Kishore Gopalakrishna & Kumar, V., 2012. "Differential Effects of Value Consciousness and Coupon Proneness on Consumers’ Persuasion Knowledge of Pricing Tactics," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 20-33.
    17. Alexander Erlei & Mattheus Brenig & Nils Engelbrecht, 2024. "Consumer Behavior under Benevolent Price Discrimination," Papers 2404.03581, arXiv.org.
    18. Xi Li & Xinlong Li, 2023. "The Bright Side of Inequity Aversion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4210-4227, July.
    19. Azar, Ofer H., 2014. "Optimal strategy of multi-product retailers with relative thinking and reference prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 130-140.
    20. Nathan Chubaka Mushagalusa & Eddy Balemba Kanyurhi & Deogratias Bugandwa Mungu Akonkwa & Patrick Murhula Cubaka, 2022. "Measuring price fairness and its impact on consumers’ trust and switching intentions in microfinance institutions," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(2), pages 111-135, June.
    21. Ruske, René & Suttner, Johannes, 2012. "Wie (un-)fair sind Ökonomen? Neue empirische Evidenz zur Marktbewertung und Rationalität," CIW Discussion Papers 03/2012, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dual Entitlement; Fairness Perceptions; Consumer Antagonism; COVID-19; Pandemic; Price Level; Price Adjustment; Price Increase; Price Rigidity; Sticky Prices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-24-00103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.