IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1424.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing Long-Run Price Convergence in Retailing

Author

Listed:
  • Borraz, Fernando
  • Zipitría, Leandro

Abstract

We assess price dispersion in retail markets and its sources over time. Using a product-detailed price database, we document a consistent divergence of prices over time in retail markets in Uruguay: price dispersion increased by 3.1% in fifteen years. Next, we analyze microeconomic and macroeconomic factors that correlate with price dispersion. We differentiate the effect in the short-run-i.e., static differences between markets-and long-run effects-if these effects increase or decrease over time. Macroeconomic factors fluctuate over time in their impact on price dispersion. Microeconomic factors, mainly competition between stores and differences in category assortments between stores, have a substantial shortrun correlation and an increased effect over time. When we add interactions to the trend, our measure of price dispersion, we found that price dispersion is twice higher: 6.3%.

Suggested Citation

  • Borraz, Fernando & Zipitría, Leandro, 2024. "Assessing Long-Run Price Convergence in Retailing," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1424, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1424
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/289780/1/GLO-DP-1424.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. C. Simon Fan & Xiangdong Wei, 2006. "The Law of One Price: Evidence from the Transitional Economy of China," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 682-697, November.
    2. Alfredo Martõn-Oliver & Vicente Salas-Fum¡S & Jesus Saurina, 2007. "A Test of the Law of One Price in Retail Banking," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 2021-2040, December.
    3. David C. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 1996. "Convergence to the Law of One Price Without Trade Barriers or Currency Fluctuations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1211-1236.
    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. Holmes, Mark J. & Otero, Jesús & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2013. "On the dynamics of gasoline market integration in the United States: Evidence from a pair-wise approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 503-510.
    2. Charles Engel & Feng Zhu, 2019. "Exchange rate puzzles: evidence from rigidly fixed nominal exchange rate systems," BIS Working Papers 805, Bank for International Settlements.
    3. James Herndon, 2020. "A Note on Price Behavior in Urban Pakistan," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 1214-1221, January.
    4. Elberg, Andrés, 2016. "Sticky prices and deviations from the Law of One Price: Evidence from Mexican micro-price data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 191-203.
    5. Wimanda, Rizki E., 2009. "Price variability and price convergence: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 427-442, September.
    6. Duch-Brown, Néstor & Grzybowski, Lukasz & Romahn, André & Verboven, Frank, 2021. "Are online markets more integrated than traditional markets? Evidence from consumer electronics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Zheng, Yilin & Lu, Ming & Li, Jiewei, 2022. "Internal circulation in China: Analyzing market segmentation and integration using big data for truck traffic flow," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    8. Kitenge, Erick M. & Morshed, A.K.M. Mahbub, 2019. "Price convergence among Indian cities: The role of linguistic differences, topography, and aggregation," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 34-50.
    9. Chris Parker & Kamalini Ramdas & Nicos Savva, 2016. "Is IT Enough? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India’s Agriculture Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(9), pages 2481-2503, September.
    10. Vinh Q. T. Dang & Yu (Alan) Yang, 2017. "Assessing Market Integration in ASEAN with Retail Price Data," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 510-532, October.
    11. Daniel M. Bernhofen & Markus Eberhardt & Jianan Li & Stephen Morgan, 2015. "Assessing Market (Dis)Integration in Early Modern China and Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 5580, CESifo.
    12. Carlos Góes & Troy Matheson, 2017. "Domestic market integration and the law of one price in Brazil," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 284-288, March.
    13. repec:zbw:bofitp:2008_013 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:rre:publsh:v:36:y:2006:i:3:p:400-426 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Saileshsingh Gunessee & Cheng Zhang, 2022. "The economics of domestic market integration," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1069-1095, September.
    16. M. Ege Yazgan & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2016. "High versus low inflation: implications for price-level convergence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1527-1563, June.
    17. Malone, Trey & Schaefer, K. Aleks & Lusk, Jayson L., 2021. "Unscrambling U.S. egg supply chains amid COVID-19," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    18. Sam Jones & César Salazar, 2021. "Infrastructure Improvements and Maize Market Integration: Bridging the Zambezi in Mozambique," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(2), pages 620-642, March.
    19. Xinyu Hou & Puyang Sun, 2023. "The impact of dismantling state monopoly on market integration: Evidence from the edible salt reform in China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 589-609, July.
    20. Li, Chao & Gibson, John, 2013. "Rising Regional Inequality in China: Fact or Artifact?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 16-29.
    21. Ritola, Maria, 2008. "Price convergence and geographic dimension of market integration : Evidence from China," BOFIT Discussion Papers 13/2008, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    22. Akhmedjonov, Alisher & Lau, Chi Keung, 2012. "Do energy prices converge across Russian regions?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 1623-1631.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price Dispersion; Market Segmentation; Retail Industry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • F40 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - General
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:glodps:1424. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.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.