IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pca/wpaper/04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Lower Search Costs Reduce Prices and Price Dispersion?

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Pereira

    (Autoridade da Concorrência)

Abstract

This paper presents a search model, for which a decrease in the search cost may lead to lower prices and to a lower price variance, but may also lead to the opposite. This result contrasts with some predictions about the impact of the Internet on prices, but fits well with the empirical literature on e-commerce.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Pereira, 2004. "Do Lower Search Costs Reduce Prices and Price Dispersion?," Working Papers 04, Portuguese Competition Authority.
    • Handle: RePEc:pca:wpaper:04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.concorrencia.pt/download/WP04_LoSeCo.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2004
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dennis W. Carlton & Judith A. Chevalier, 2001. "Free Riding and Sales Strategies for the Internet," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 441-461, December.
    2. Kreps, David M & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Sequential Equilibria," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 863-894, July.
    3. Karen Clay & Ramayya Krishnan & Eric Wolff, 2001. "Prices and Price Dispersion on the Web: Evidence from the Online Book Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 521-539, December.
    4. Pereira, Pedro, 2001. "Market power, cost reduction and consumer search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(9), pages 1457-1473, November.
    5. Kyle Bagwell & Garey Ramey, 1994. "Advertising and Coordination," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(1), pages 153-171.
    6. Eric K. Clemons & Il-Horn Hann & Lorin M. Hitt, 2002. "Price Dispersion and Differentiation in Online Travel: An Empirical Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(4), pages 534-549, April.
    7. Erik Brynjolfsson & Michael D. Smith, 2000. "Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 563-585, April.
    8. Jeffrey R. Brown & Austan Goolsbee, 2002. "Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 481-507, June.
    9. Reinganum, Jennifer F, 1979. "A Simple Model of Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 851-858, August.
    10. repec:bla:jindec:v:49:y:2001:i:4:p:441-61 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Benabou Roland, 1993. "Search Market Equilibrium, Bilateral Heterogeneity, and Repeat Purchases," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 140-158, June.
    12. repec:bla:jindec:v:49:y:2001:i:4:p:521-39 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. J. Yannis Bakos, 1997. "Reducing Buyer Search Costs: Implications for Electronic Marketplaces," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(12), pages 1676-1692, December.
    14. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    15. Samuelson, Larry & Zhang, Jianbo, 1992. "Search costs and prices," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 55-60, January.
    16. MacMinn, Richard D, 1980. "Search and Market Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 308-327, April.
    17. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2001. "Comment on "Reducing Buyer Search Costs: Implications for Electronic Marketplaces"," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(12), pages 1727-1732, December.
    18. Oecd, 1998. "Electronic Commerce: Prices and Consumer Issues for Three Products: Books, Compact Discs and Software," OECD Digital Economy Papers 32, OECD Publishing.
    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. Xiaoping He & David Reiner, 2018. "Consumer Engagement in Energy Markets: The Role of Information and Knowledge," Working Papers EPRG 1835, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    2. Aurora García-Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Pedro Pereira & José C. Pernías-Cerrillo, 2005. "Competing Against Simulated Equilibrium Price Dispersions: An Experiment On Internet-Assisted Search Markets," Working Papers 05-12, NET Institute.
    3. García-Gallego Aurora & Georgantzís Nikolaos & Pereira Pedro & Pernías-Cerrillo José C., 2016. "Bias and Size Effects of Price-Comparison Platforms: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-34, March.
    4. Aurora García-Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Pedro Pereira & José C. Pernías-Cerrillo, 2004. "Risk Attitudes and Internet Search Engines: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 04-03, NET Institute, revised Oct 2004.

    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. Cristina Mazón & Pedro Pereira, 2001. "Electronic commerce, consumer search and reailing cost reduction," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 0102, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico.
    2. Edgardo Arturo Ayala Gaytán, 2009. "Social network externalities and price dispersion in online markets," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 1-28, November.
    3. Pereira, Pedro, 2005. "Multiplicity of equilibria in search markets with free entry and exit," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(5-6), pages 325-339, June.
    4. Anindya Ghose & Yuliang Yao, 2011. "Using Transaction Prices to Re-Examine Price Dispersion in Electronic Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 269-288, June.
    5. Moraga-González, José L. & Sándor, Zsolt & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2014. "Prices, Product Differentiation, And Heterogeneous Search Costs," IESE Research Papers D/1097, IESE Business School.
    6. Michael A. Arnold & Christine Saliba, 2003. "Price Dispersion in Online Markets: The Case of College Textbooks," Working Papers 03-02, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    7. Gerard J. Berg, 2006. "Revolutionary Effects of New Information Technologies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(509), pages 10-28, February.
    8. Zhang, Xubing & Jiang, Bo, 2014. "Increasing Price Transparency: Implications of Consumer Price Posting for Consumers' Haggling Behavior and a Seller's Pricing Strategies," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 68-85.
    9. Dmitri Kuksov, 2004. "Buyer Search Costs and Endogenous Product Design," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 490-499, May.
    10. Sophie Larribeau & Thierry Pénard, 2002. "Le commerce électronique en France : un essai de mesure sur le marché des CD," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 355(1), pages 27-46.
    11. Il-Horn Hann & Christian Terwiesch, 2003. "Measuring the Frictional Costs of Online Transactions: The Case of a Name-Your-Own-Price Channel," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1563-1579, November.
    12. Pereira, Pedro, 2001. "Market power, cost reduction and consumer search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(9), pages 1457-1473, November.
    13. De los Santos, Babur, 2018. "Consumer search on the Internet," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 66-105.
    14. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan & Patrick Scholten, 2006. "Information, Search, and Price Dispersion," Working Papers 2006-11, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    15. Ya-Ling Chiu & Jiangze Du & Jying-Nan Wang, 2022. "The Effects of Price Dispersion on Sales in the Automobile Industry: A Dynamic Panel Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, August.
    16. Randy A. Nelson & Richard Cohen & Frederik Roy Rasmussen, 2007. "An Analysis of Pricing Strategy and Price Dispersion on the Internet," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 95-110, Winter.
    17. Boone, J. & Potters, J.J.M., 2002. "Transparency, Prices and Welfare with Imperfect Substitutes," Discussion Paper 2002-7, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    18. Robert J. Kauffman & Charles A. Wood, 2007. "Follow the leader: price change timing in Internet-based selling," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 679-700.
    19. Nestor Duch-Brown & Bertin Martens, 2014. "Consumer benefits from the EU Digital Single Market: evidence from household appliances markets," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2014-03, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    20. Fiona Scott Morton, 2006. "Consumer Benefit from Use of the Internet," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 6, pages 67-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Search; Price Levels; Price Dispersion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    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:pca:wpaper:04. 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: Duarte Brito (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/acogvpt.html .

    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.