Price Ranking Research Articles

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Switching Intention Antecedents in the Wireless Industry

This study attempts to identify factors that influence the mobile consumer’s switching intention and to compare the influence of these factors in both the Brazilian and German wireless markets, the latter having a longer mature-stage history. A survey was conducted on two convenience samples, comprising 202 users in Brazil and 200 users in Germany. Analysis via multiple-group structural equation modeling suggests that, in both countries, customer satisfaction is an important factor with respect to switching intention. In the Brazilian market, the influence of perceived service quality is higher than in Germany, while Germans consider perceived price to be more important than do Brazilian users. The results also suggest that perceived service quality and perceived price rank higher in the German market, while Brazilians still perceive the existence of high switching barriers.

Mean Reversion Indexing

In their 1985 paper ‘Does the stock market overeact?', DeBondt and Thaler explained the idea of mean reversion and how it leads to the Loser’s portfolio of 3 years outperforming the Winner’s portfolio of the same time. Based on mean reversion, this paper illustrates a new stock selection and trend determining approach. The paper uses an innovative approach to convert price performance data into non price ranking data, which is positively tested for mean reversion and stationarity.

Informative Brand Advertising and Pricing Strategies in Internet Markets with Heterogeneous Consumer Search

The use of information intermediaries has been shown to undermine the effect of brand in online markets. In this paper, the effect of consumer search on the relationship between brand advertising and pricing strategies is analysed. Price data are taken from the leading UK motor insurance comparison website, with the advantage that prices can be related to the search characteristics of consumers and to the advertising expenditure of firms. The paper finds that more-advertised firms have lower price rankings at the comparison site, indicating that advertising is informative in this market. The main result is that consumer search weakens the relationship between advertising and pricing. An implication is that increased usage of price comparison sites will make informative brand advertising less important.

The price competitive position of Mediterranean countries in tourism: Evidence from the Thomson brochure

Tourism in the Mediterranean region is highly dependent on the few, large, mass market tour operators situated in the North European tourist originating countries. Price competition is intense both between the tour operators and between the Mediterranean countries themselves. This paper uses the hotel package prices listed in the Thomson summer and winter brochures to develop relative price indexes of each Mediterranean country with respect to the Mediterranean average. Indexes are developed in the 3 star, 4 star, 5 star, 7 nights and 14 nights, half-board holiday packages. The prices in the Thomson brochure can be regarded as a unified, internally consistent, set of price data, compiled by the largest UK tour operator and offered to UK tourists desiring a Thomson summer holiday. The change through time of the competitive relative price ranking of hotels, regions and countries listed in the Thomson brochure, may be regarded as an important competitive indicator by industry operators and national policy makers concerned about tourism development.

Consumer search and dynamic price dispersion: an application to gasoline markets

This article studies the role of imperfect information in explaining price dispersion. We use a new panel data set on the U.S. retail gasoline industry and propose a new test of temporal price dispersion to establish the importance of consumer search. We show that price rankings vary significantly over time; however, they are more stable among stations at the same street intersection. We establish the equilibrium relationships between price dispersion and key variables from consumer search models. Price dispersion increases with the number of firms in the market, decreases with the production cost, and increases with search costs.

The Effect of Reference Point Diagnosticity on Attractiveness and Intentions Ratings

Researchers have long been interested in understanding cognitive processing differences across consumer judgments and choices. Although it represents a focal outcome in much research, less attention has focused on the “choice-like” response of behavioral intentions. This research compares processing differences in the formulation of judgments of attractiveness and intentions. On the basis of the premise that different goals underlie these responses, the authors hypothesize that alternative reference points result from differential reference point diagnosticity. The authors test this prediction in the domain of price attractiveness and purchase intentions ratings. Study 1 provides evidence that endpoints of the range of alternative prices are more predictive of ratings of price attractiveness than of purchase intentions, while price rank and distribution mean are more predictive of purchase intentions ratings than of price attractiveness ratings. Study 2 replicates this effect using a different methodology. Finally, Study 3 provides a test of the external validity of these findings in a multicue setting.

Internet shopping optimization problem

Internet shopping optimization problemA high number of Internet shops makes it difficult for a customer to review manually all the available offers and select optimal outlets for shopping. A partial solution to the problem is brought by price comparators which produce price rankings from collected offers. However, their possibilities are limited to a comparison of offers for a single product requested by the customer. The issue we investigate in this paper is a multiple-item multiple-shop optimization problem, in which total expenses of a customer to buy a given set of items should be minimized over all available offers. In this paper, the Internet Shopping Optimization Problem (ISOP) is defined in a formal way and a proof of its strong NP-hardness is provided. We also describe polynomial time algorithms for special cases of the problem.

Comparing Duopoly Prices and Quantities in Different Competition Models

Undergraduate economic students usually learn different models of duopoly competition: Cournot, Bertrand, Cournot-Stackelberg, Bertrand-Stackelberg and joint profit maximization. While the textbooks usually claim that different models lead to different levels of competitiveness, there does not exist comprehensive comparison of five cases with asymmetric firms. This paper fills this gap, and shows a clear price (output) ranking among these five markets when goods are substitutes (complements). The rankings are linked to the levels of conjectural variation associated with each duopoly market outcome.

The return to value in Asian stock markets

This paper investigates the returns to value strategies in four Asian stock markets: Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore exhibit value premia while Taiwan shows value discounts. The impact of firm characteristics on value premia differs across the four markets. The robustness tests indicate that the value premia are time-varying. They become greater in the post-crisis period across all four countries, indicating that high volatility during the crisis period did understate the value premia. The value strategy's excess return is sensitive to the sample selection rule and the firm size and liquidity effects. With tighter sample selection criteria, value premia tend to decline, which indicates that both the firm size effect and the liquidity effect are important sources of value premia. Unequal weighting assigned to financial variables in constructing the Average Price Rank (APR) based on the overall performance of single-variable approach does not necessarily improve the results.

Consumer Search and Dynamic Price Dispersion: An Application to Gasoline Markets

This paper studies the role of imperfect information in explaining price dispersion. We use a new panel dataset on the U.S. retail gasoline industry, and propose a new test of temporal price dispersion to establish the importance of consumer search. We show that price rankings vary significantly over time; however, they are more stable among stations at the same street intersection. We establish the equilibrium relationships between price dispersion and key variables from consumer search models. Price dispersion increases with the number of firms in the market, decreases with the production cost and increases with search costs.

Reverse Leverage Buyouts, Timing and Underpricing

The primary objective of this research is to investigate aspects of the length of time between a LBO and a subsequent IPO (reverse LBO). Short LBO times benefit from the relevance of pre-LBO information, and long LBO times benefit from less uncertainty about future performance. A sample of 251 reversed LBO firms is identified. Initial results indicate the relationship may be non-linear and consistent with the two information advantages. We then test the ability of the time as a LBO to contribute to an explanation of IPO underpricing. The regression model includes revision in issue proceeds, offer price, revisions of offer price, over-allotment option and underwriters' prestige rank. The results do not find a relation between the time as a LBO and underpricing of the IPO. However, variables for revisions of offer price, over-allotment option and underwriters' prestige rank are significant. Further testing supports that there is no relationship between time as a LBO and underpricing. We also find that larger firms tend to stay under private ownership longer, which is consistent with the view that bigger firms are more complex and take longer to complete the restructuring process.