[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/y2004v47i1p307-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Incidence and Variety of Low-Price Guarantees

Author

Listed:
  • Arbatskaya, Maria
  • Hviid, Morten
  • Shaffer, Greg
Abstract
This paper provides evidence of the incidence and variety of low-price guarantees (promises to match or beat a rival's price) using data obtained from newspaper advertisements in 37 metropolitan areas in the United States. We have a total of 515 low-price guarantees in our sample. We document their features, and we infer firms' motives and effects from these features. The evidence suggests that the majority of low-price guarantees are not consistent with their use as a facilitating device because they tend to apply only to rival firms' advertised prices or they are associated with high hassle costs. The evidence also suggests that price-beating and price-matching guarantees differ significantly in their features. The former are associated with higher hassle costs, apply disproportionately to rival firms' advertised prices, and are more likely to allow postsale search than are price-matching guarantees.

Suggested Citation

  • Arbatskaya, Maria & Hviid, Morten & Shaffer, Greg, 2004. "On the Incidence and Variety of Low-Price Guarantees," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 307-332, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:y:2004:v:47:i:1:p:307-32
    DOI: 10.1086/386275
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/386275
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/386275?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhiqi Chen, 1995. "How Low Is a Guaranteed-Lowest-Price?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(3), pages 683-701, August.
    2. Baye, Michael R. & Kovenock, Dan, 1994. "How to sell a pickup truck : 'Beat-or-pay' advertisements as facilitating devices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 21-33, March.
    3. Corts, Kenneth S., 1997. "On the competitive effects of price-matching policies," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 283-299, May.
    4. Hviid, Morton & Shaffer, Greg, 1994. "Do low-price Guarantees facilitate Collusion?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 422, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Kaplan, Todd R., 2000. "Effective price-matching: a comment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(8), pages 1291-1294, December.
    6. Png, I P L & Hirshleifer, D, 1987. "Price Discrimination through Offers to Match Price," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(3), pages 365-383, July.
    7. Doyle, Christopher, 1988. "Different selling strategies in Bertrand oligopoly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 387-390.
    8. Crocker, Keith J & Lyon, Thomas P, 1994. "What do Facilitating Practices Facilitate? An Empirical Investigation of Most-Favored-Nation Clauses in Natural Gas Contracts," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(2), pages 297-322, October.
    9. Corts, Kenneth S., 1995. "On the robustness of the argument that price-matching is anti-competitive," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(3-4), pages 417-421, March.
    10. Edlin, Aaron S. & Emch, Eric R., 1999. "The Welfare Losses from Price-Matching Policies," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt43b7w47c, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    11. repec:bla:jindec:v:47:y:1999:i:2:p:145-67 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Morten Hviid & Greg Shaffer, 1999. "Hassle Costs: The Achilles' Heel of Price‐Matching Guarantees," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(4), pages 489-521, December.
    13. Logan, John W. & Lutter, Randall W., 1989. "Guaranteed lowest prices: do they facilitate collusion?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 189-192, December.
    14. Arbatskaya, Maria, 2001. "Can low-price guarantees deter entry?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(9), pages 1387-1406, November.
    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. Trost, Michael, 2022. "Unraveling the spreading pattern of collusively effective competition clauses," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 01-2022, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    2. Arbatskaya, Maria & Hviid, Morten & Shaffer, Greg, 2006. "On the use of low-price guarantees to discourage price cutting," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1139-1156, November.
    3. Pinar Akman & Morten Hviid, 2005. "A Most-Favoured-Customer Guarantee with a Twist," Working Papers 05-8, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia.
    4. Subhasish Dugar & Todd Sorensen, 2006. "Hassle Costs, Price-Matching Guarantees and Price Competition: An Experiment," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 28(4), pages 359-378, June.
    5. Enrique Fatás & Nikolaos Georgantz & Juan A. Máñez & Gerardo Sabater, 2013. "Experimental duopolies under price guarantees," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 15-35, January.
    6. Morten Hviid & Greg Shaffer, 2010. "Matching Own Prices, Rivals' Prices Or Both?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 479-506, September.
    7. Trost, Michael, 2021. "The collusive efficacy of competition clauses in Bertrand Markets with capacity-constrained retailers," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 04-2021, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    8. Mago, Shakun Datta & Pate, Jennifer G., 2009. "An experimental examination of competitor-based price matching guarantees," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 342-360, May.
    9. Pio Baake & Ulrich Schwalbe, 2013. "Price Guarantees, Consumer Search, and Hassle Costs," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1335, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Juncai Jiang & Nanda Kumar & Brian T. Ratchford, 2017. "Price-Matching Guarantees with Endogenous Consumer Search," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3489-3513, October.
    11. Subhasish Dugar, 2007. "Price-Matching Guarantees and Equilibrium Selection in a Homogenous Product Market: An Experimental Study," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 30(2), pages 107-119, March.
    12. Kim, Byung-Cheol & Ahmed, Mishal, 2020. "Price-match guarantees and investment incentives," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    13. Morten Hviid & Greg Shaffer, 2012. "Optimal low-price guarantees with anchoring," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 393-417, December.
    14. Andreas Pollak, 2017. "Do Price-Matching Guarantees with Markups Facilitate Tacit Collusion? Theory and Experiment," Working Paper Series in Economics 93, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    15. Anne T. Coughlan & Greg Shaffer, 2009. "—Price-Matching Guarantees, Retail Competition, and Product-Line Assortment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 580-588, 05-06.
    16. Bottasso, Anna & Marocco, Paolo & Robbiano, Simone, 2020. "Price matching and platform pricing," MPRA Paper 104811, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Enrique Fatas & Juan Mañez, 2007. "Are low-price promises collusion guarantees? An experimental test of price matching policies," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 59-77, March.
    18. Morten Hviid & Greg Shaffer, 1999. "Hassle Costs: The Achilles' Heel of Price‐Matching Guarantees," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(4), pages 489-521, December.
    19. Juncai Jiang & Chuan He, 2021. "Low-Price Guarantees in a Dual Channel of Distribution," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(4), pages 765-782, July.
    20. Arcan Nalca & Tamer Boyaci & Saibal Ray, 2010. "Competitive price-matching guarantees under imperfect store availability," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 275-300, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices

    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:ucp:jlawec:y:2004:v:47:i:1:p:307-32. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.