This paper describes methods for determining the prices for a discrete set of interrelated products oflered by a single supplier. Each product has a fixed marginal rate per unit, the demand for each product depends upon the price levels of all the products and the supplier’s cost function depends upon the demands for all the products. For spec$c demand function forms, methods are described for ...

Virtual reality is used in many military, scienti c, and industrial applications, ranging from training astronauts to designing automobiles. Despite an eager market, the lack of high-performing products at consumer-level prices has relegated entertainment VR applications to something you’d nd in an amusement park or still languishing as a prototype. However, the announcement of several new high...

Pricing schemes that vary prices in response to demand shocks may antagonize consumers and reduce demand. At the same time, consumers may take advantage of the opportunities offered by price changes. Overall, the net impact of varying price on demand is ambiguous. We investigate the issue empirically, exploiting a unique dataset from a firm that has experimented with different pricing schemes. ...

I am here today to report on the findings of a recent study that I helped manage and conduct, a study titled “Easing the Natural Gas Crisis: Reducing Natural Gas Prices Through Increased Deployment of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.” This study explores the relationship between renewable generation and energy efficiency investments and natural gas prices. As I will describe, the report ...

This paper considers the effect of exchange rate (ER) level on China’s domestic prices during the period of 2003–2012. We examine China’s consumer price index (CPI), import price index (IPI) and producer price index (PPI) by using time series vector error correction analysis. The main finding of the paper is that ER passthrough has had a limited but growing effect on domestic prices and will co...

This study fills a void in the literature by providing the first evaluation of the impact of consumer ratings on beer prices using hedonic methods. Our work is based on a dataset consisting of over 400 beers and includes information on calorie content, alcohol content, user rating, and style for each beer. Our results indicate that a 10-point increase in consumer rating is associated with about...

Regulations—regardless of whether or not they are directed specifically at the food sector—can affect the varieties and qualities of foods available for purchase, the prices consumers face, the information consumers receive about a product, and consumer confidence in the food supply. This chapter reviews four important categories of policies and regulations—farm assistance programs, food safety...

mortgage debt market and thereby increase the losses lenders experience on loan defaults. The popularity of nontraditional mortgage loans, such as interest-only loans and adjustable-rate loans that permit negative amortization (“option ARMS”), raises additional concern about default risk because such loans expose borrowers to more interest-rate and house-price risk than traditional fixed-rate, ...

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative market basket of consumer goods and services. The CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) represents the spending habits of about 87 percent of the population of the United States. The CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), a subset of the CPI-U populatio...

Improved consumer information about horizontal aspects of products of similar quality leads to better consumer matching but also higher prices, so consumer surplus can go up or down, while proÞts rise. With enough quality asymmetry though, the higher quality (and hence larger) Þrm’s price falls with more information, so both effects beneÞt consumers. This is when comparative advertising is used...