IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v213y2022ics0165176522000611.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lack of local pricing response in national retail chains during large and localized demand peaks: Evidence from college move-ins and instant noodles

Author

Listed:
  • Dong, Xiao

Abstract

I utilize the predictable stockpiling of instant noodles during move-in week in college towns to examine how national retailers adjust prices in response to large and localized demand peaks. I find unit sales of instant noodles increase over 250% during college move-in week compared to sales in non-college town stores. Furthermore, I find national retail chains do not adjust prices locally in response and maintain uniform pricing.

Suggested Citation

  • Dong, Xiao, 2022. "Lack of local pricing response in national retail chains during large and localized demand peaks: Evidence from college move-ins and instant noodles," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:213:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522000611
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110384
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176522000611
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110384?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Etienne Gagnon & David López-Salido, 2020. "Small Price Responses to Large Demand Shocks," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 792-828.
    2. Brian Adams & Kevin R. Williams, 2019. "Zone Pricing in Retail Oligopoly," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 124-156, February.
    3. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    4. James M. MacDonald, 2000. "Demand, Information, and Competition: Why Do Food Prices Fall at Seasonal Demand Peaks?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 27-45, March.
    5. Janine Empen & Stephen F. Hamilton, 2015. "How Do Retailers Price Beer During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Game Weeks of the German Bundesliga," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(3), pages 679-696, January.
    6. Günter J. Hitsch & Ali Hortaçsu & Xiliang Lin, 2019. "Prices and Promotions in U.S. Retail Markets: Evidence from Big Data," NBER Working Papers 26306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Stefano DellaVigna & Matthew Gentzkow, 2019. "Uniform Pricing in U.S. Retail Chains," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2011-2084.
    8. Jessie Handbury & Sarah Moshary, 2021. "School Food Policy Affects Everyone: Retail Responses to the National School Lunch Program," NBER Working Papers 29384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Janine Empen & Stephen F. Hamilton, 2013. "How Do Supermarkets Respond to Brand-Level Demand Shocks? Evidence from the German Beer Market," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1223-1229.
    10. Judith A. Chevalier & Anil K. Kashyap & Peter E. Rossi, 2003. "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 15-37, March.
    11. repec:wly:soecon:v:81:3:y:2015:p:679-696 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Dong, Xiao & Klaiber, H. Allen, 2019. "Consumer stockpiling in response to the U.S. EISA “light bulb ban”," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 566-576.
    13. Guler, Ali Umut & Misra, Kanishka & Vilcassim, Naufel, 2014. "Countercyclical pricing: A consumer heterogeneity explanation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 343-347.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrick W. McLaughlin & Alexander Stevens & Shawn Arita & Xiao Dong, 2023. "Stocking up and stocking out: Food retail stock‐outs, consumer demand, and prices during the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 1618-1633, September.
    2. Dong, Xiao, 2023. "Does seasonal product rotation contribute to countercyclical pricing and cheaper turkeys during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    3. Zeballos, Eliana & Dong, Xiao & Islamaj, Ergys, 2023. "A Disaggregated View of Market Concentration in the Food Retail Industry," USDA Miscellaneous 333546, United States Department of Agriculture.
    4. MacDonald, James M. & Dong, Xiao & Fuglie, Keith O., 2023. "Concentration and Competition in U.S. Agribusiness," Economic Information Bulletin 337566, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

    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. Dong, Xiao, 2023. "Does seasonal product rotation contribute to countercyclical pricing and cheaper turkeys during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    2. Juan Pablo Atal & José Ignacio Cuesta & Felipe González & Cristóbal Otero, 2024. "The Economics of the Public Option: Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(3), pages 615-644, March.
    3. Christopher Hansman & Harrison Hong & Áureo de Paula & Vishal Singh, 2020. "A Sticky-Price View of Hoarding," NBER Working Papers 27051, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Diego Daruich & Julian Kozlowski, 2023. "Macroeconomic Implications of Uniform Pricing," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 64-108, July.
    5. Omid Zamani & Thomas Bittmann & Jens‐Peter Loy, 2019. "Demand peaks and cost pass‐through: The case of Iran's poultry market," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(4), pages 657-674, October.
    6. Guler, Ali Umut, 2021. "Seasonal price effects of mergers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    7. Avery Haviv, 2022. "Consumer Search, Price Promotions, and Counter-Cyclic Pricing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 294-314, March.
    8. Jessie Handbury, 2021. "Are Poor Cities Cheap for Everyone? Non‐Homotheticity and the Cost of Living Across U.S. Cities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(6), pages 2679-2715, November.
    9. Hindriks, Jean & Madio, Leonardo & Serse, Valerio, 2021. "Promotion ban and heterogeneity in retail prices during the Great Lockdown," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2021005, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    10. Anja Lambrecht & Kanishka Misra, 2017. "Fee or Free: When Should Firms Charge for Online Content?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(4), pages 1150-1165, April.
    11. Janine Empen & Stephen F. Hamilton, 2015. "How Do Retailers Price Beer During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Game Weeks of the German Bundesliga," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(3), pages 679-696, January.
    12. Li, Chenguang & Sexton, Richard J., 2009. "Impacts of Retailers’ Pricing Strategies for Produce Commodities on Farmer Welfare," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51720, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Fontaine, François & Martin, Julien & Mejean, Isabelle, 2020. "Price discrimination within and across EMU markets: Evidence from French exporters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    14. Angel Espinoza E., 2024. "Public Transportation and Consumer Prices: Chain Stores, Street Vendors and Mom and Pop Stores," Working Papers 2024-02, Banco de México.
    15. Laura Birg & Anna Goeddeke, 2016. "Christmas Economics—A Sleigh Ride," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(4), pages 1980-1984, October.
    16. Ray, Sourav & Snir, Avichai & Levy, Daniel, 2023. "Retail Pricing Format and Rigidity of Regular Prices," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-1.
    17. Sergio Meza & K. Sudhir, 2006. "Pass-through timing," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 351-382, December.
    18. DeGraba, Patrick, 2006. "The loss leader is a turkey: Targeted discounts from multi-product competitors," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 613-628, May.
    19. Argentesi, Elena & Buccirossi, Paolo & Cervone, Roberto & Duso, Tomaso & Marrazzo, Alessia, 2021. "The effect of mergers on variety in grocery retailing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    20. Guler, Ali Umut & Misra, Kanishka & Vilcassim, Naufel, 2014. "Countercyclical pricing: A consumer heterogeneity explanation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 343-347.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Localized demand peaks; Pricing response; Uniform pricing; Instant noodles; College move-in; Stockpiling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

    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:eee:ecolet:v:213:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522000611. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.