Objective: To examine the effectiveness of pricing strategies and promotion signs to stimulate healthier food purchases. Methods: A randomized controlled factorial design with three levels of price reduction (10%; 25%; and 50%) and three types of signs ('special offer', 'healthy choice' and 'special offer & healthy choice') on healthy foods was used. N=109 participants completed the experiment ...

Policies related to alcohol pricing, promotion and discounts provide opportunities to address harms associated with alcohol misuse. However, there are important gaps in information and knowledge about the regulations in place across parts of Europe and their impacts on consumer prices and locations of purchase. Using market data, we explored the overall scale and trend of price promotions and d...

Despite the abundant theoretical literature on production flexibility, price postponement and dynamic pricing, there exists limited empirical evidence on how production flexibility affects pricing decisions. Using a detailed dataset from the U.S. auto industry, we examine the relationship between production flexibility and responsive pricing. Our analysis shows that deploying production flexibi...

Is the cost of living higher for the poor? Recent studies based on unit values (the ratio of expenditure to quantity) suggest that poor households pay substantially higher prices because liquidity constraints force them to purchase goods in small quantities and not realize bulk discounts. Unit values are subject to several biases and reflect economizing choices made by households, so they may n...

BACKGROUND Minimum markup/price laws (MPLs) have been proposed as an alternative non-tax pricing strategy to reduce tobacco use and access. However, the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of MPLs in increasing cigarette prices is very limited. This study aims to fill this critical gap by examining the association between MPLs and cigarette prices. METHODS State MPLs were compiled from pr...

In this paper we study how a reduction of consumer switching costs may affect market competition in the wireless telecommunication industry. The reduction of switching costs can be achieved through the implementation of a regulatory policy called Wireless Number Portability (WNP) that allows consumers to retain the same phone numbers when they switch service providers. By r educing consumers' s...

This article shows that in a model of exogenously given sales expansion target with a dominant manufacturer, the relative profitability of coupon and price-reduction schemes depends on the values of coupon redemption rates and the equivalence ratio of price reduction to coupon face value. It is also shown that retailer’s margin has an uncertain impact on the compensation constraint on the manuf...

In this paper, we examine the issue of order coordination between a supplier and multiple retailers in a decentralized multi-echelon inventory/distribution system where the supplier provides a product to multiple retailers who experience static demand and standard inventory costs. Specifically, we propose and analyze a new policy where a manufacturer, who outsources production to an OEM, offers...

We use the results of three large-scale field experiments to investigate how the depth of a current price promotion affects future purchasing. While most previous studies have focused on packaged goods sold in grocery stores, we consider durable goods sold through a direct mail catalog. The findings reveal different effects for firsttime and established customers. Deeper price discounts in the ...