Why Suggest Non-Binding Retail Prices?

Why Suggest Non-Binding Retail Prices?

We provide a simple behavioral explanation of why manufacturers frequently announce non-binding suggested retail prices for their products. Our model is based on the assumption that once the actual price for a product exceeds its suggested retail price, the marginal propensity to consume suddenly jumps downward. We show that this may induce a monopolistic retailer to set the price equal to the ...

Price Transparency and Retail Prices

Price transparency initiatives are typically undertaken by third parties to ensure that consumers can compare the prices of competing offers in markets where obtaining such information is costly. Such practices have recently become widespread, yet it is unclear whether the increased price competition due to lower search costs overcomes the potential for collusion between competitors due to lowe...

Do Daily Retail Gasoline Prices adjust Asymmetrically?

Making Sense of Non-Binding Retail Price Recommendations

This paper provides a theoretical rationale for non-binding retail price recommendations (RPRs) in vertical supply relations. Analyzing a bilateral manufacturer-retailer relationship with repeated trade, we show that linear relational contracts can implement the surplus-maximizing outcome. If the manufacturer has private information about production costs or consumer demand, RPRs may serve as a...

Why Are Prices Sticky? The Dynamics of Wholesale Gasoline Prices

The menu-cost interpretation of sticky prices implies that the probability of a price change should depend on the past history of prices and fundamentals only through the gap between the current price and the frictionless price. We find that this prediction is broadly consistent with the behavior of 9 Philadelphia gasoline wholesalers. We nevertheless reject the menu-cost model as a literal des...