IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v40y1996i2p65-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Japanese Automakers Maximize Profits? A Systems Analysis of the Pricing of Automobile Inventories

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine C. Langlois

Abstract

This article investigates Japanese automaker pricing practices on the U.S. market and finds them compatible with short run profit maximization. The short run is here the selling time of a typical inventory holding and short run profit is defined as average per unit of time profit made over this selling time. Maximizing this concept of short run profit implies setting markup over the average cost of goods equal to the inverse of the price sensitivity of inventory selling time. To test for short run profit maximizing behavior, estimates of this price sensitivity for each firm are compared to the actual markups applied by U.S. and Japanese automakers.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine C. Langlois, 1996. "Do Japanese Automakers Maximize Profits? A Systems Analysis of the Pricing of Automobile Inventories," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 40(2), pages 65-76, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:40:y:1996:i:2:p:65-76
    DOI: 10.1177/056943459604000209
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943459604000209
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943459604000209?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fuss,Melvyn A. & Waverman,Leonard, 2006. "Costs and Productivity in Automobile Production," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521031752, September.
    2. Robert W. Crandall, 1985. "What Have Auto-Import Quotas Wrought?," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(6), pages 40-47, January.
    3. Marston, Richard C., 1990. "Pricing to market in Japanese manufacturing," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3-4), pages 217-236, November.
    4. Robert C. Feenstra, 1988. "Quality Change Under Trade Restraints in Japanese Autos," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 131-146.
    5. Fair, Ray C, 1970. "The Estimation of Simultaneous Equation Models with Lagged Endogenous Variables and First Order Serially Correlated Errors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(3), pages 507-516, May.
    6. Shinkai, Yoichi, 1974. "Business Pricing Policies in Japanese Manufacturing Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 255-264, June.
    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. Langlois, Catherine C., 1997. "For Profit or for Market Share? The Pricing Strategy of Japanese Automakers on the U.S. Market," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 55-81, March.
    2. Douglas Nelson, 1996. "The Political Economy of U.S. Automobile Protection," NBER Chapters, in: The Political Economy of American Trade Policy, pages 133-196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Chu, Hyo-Youn, 2014. "Investments in response to trade policy: The case of Japanese firms during voluntary export restraints," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 14-36.
    4. Gagnon, Joseph E. & Knetter, Michael M., 1995. "Markup adjustment and exchange rate fluctuations: evidence from panel data on automobile exports," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 289-310, April.
    5. Nathalie Lavoie & Qihong Liu, 2007. "Pricing-to-Market: Price Discrimination or Product Differentiation?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(3), pages 571-581.
    6. Knetter, Michael M., 1997. "Why are retail prices in Japan so high? Evidence from German export prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 549-572, August.
    7. Michael M. Knetter, 1992. "Exchange Rates and Corporate Pricing Strategies," NBER Working Papers 4151, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Catherine C. Langlois & Jean-Pierre P. Langlois, 1996. "Tacit Bargaining in International Relations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 40(4), pages 569-596, December.
    9. Robert Z. Lawrence & Lawrence Edward, 2010. "Do Developed and Developing Countries Compete Head to Head in High Tech?," Working Paper Series WP10-8, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    10. Jae W. Chung, 1998. "Effects of U.S. Trade Remedy Law Enforcement under Uncertainty: The Case of Steel," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 151-159, July.
    11. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1983. "Dividend taxes, corporate investment, and `Q'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 135-167, November.
    12. Blonigen, Bruce A. & Liebman, Benjamin H. & Pierce, Justin R. & Wilson, Wesley W., 2013. "Are all trade protection policies created equal? Empirical evidence for nonequivalent market power effects of tariffs and quotas," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 369-378.
    13. repec:phd:pjdevt:jpd_1990_vol__xvii_no__2-d is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Hsu, Chih-Chiang & Yau, Ruey & Wu, Jyun-Yi, 2009. "Asymmetric Exchange Rate Exposure and Industry Characteristics : Evidence from Japanese Data," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 50(1), pages 57-69, June.
    15. Jaime de Melo & David Tarr, 2015. "VERs under imperfect competition and foreign direct investment: A case study of the US–Japan auto VER," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Modeling Developing Countries' Policies in General Equilibrium, chapter 22, pages 461-483, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Lawrence Edwards & Zaakirah Ismail & Godfrey Kamutando & Simbarashe Mambara & Matthew Stern & Fouche, 2022. "TheconsumerpriceeffectsofspecifictradepolicyrestrictionsinSouthAfrica," Working Papers 11036, South African Reserve Bank.
    17. Matthieu Bussiere, 2013. "Exchange Rate Pass-through to Trade Prices: The Role of Nonlinearities and Asymmetries," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(5), pages 731-758, October.
    18. Saghaian, Sayed H. & Reed, Michael R., 2004. "Integrating Marginal Cost into Pricing-to-market Models for U.S. Agricultural Products," CAFRI: Current Agriculture, Food and Resource Issues, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, issue 5, pages 1-17, July.
    19. Byrne, Joseph P. & Chavali, Aditya S. & Kontonikas, Alexandros, 2010. "Exchange rate pass through to import prices: panel evidence from emerging market economies," SIRE Discussion Papers 2010-46, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    20. Zhou, Dongsheng & Vertinsky, Ilan, 2002. "Can protectionist trade measures make a country better off? A study of VERs and minimum quality standards," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 227-236, March.
    21. Paul R. Bergin & Robert C. Feenstra, 2017. "Pricing-to-Market, Staggered Contracts, and Real Exchange Rate Persistence," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Macroeconomic Interdependence, chapter 6, pages 155-185, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..

    More about this item

    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:sae:amerec:v:40:y:1996:i:2:p:65-76. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    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.