Search Results
Showing results 1 to 3 of approximately 3.
(refine search)
Journal Article
Why ask? the role of asking prices in transactions
Benjamin Lester explores why sellers sometimes use negotiable asking prices and why this method can lead to more efficient outcomes.
Working Paper
Relative price dispersion: evidence and theory
REVISED: 8/1/18: We use a large data set on retail pricing to document that a sizable portion of the cross-sectional variation in the price at which the same good trades in the same period and in the same market is due to the fact that stores that are, on average, equally expensive set persistently different prices for the same good. We refer to this phenomenon as relative price dispersion. We argue that relative price dispersion stems from sellers? attempts to discriminate between high-valuation buyers who need to make all of their purchases in the same store and low-valuation buyers who are ...
Working Paper
Goods-Market Frictions and International Trade
We present a tractable framework that embeds goods-market frictions in a general equilibrium dynamic model with heterogeneous exporters and identical importers. These frictions arise because it is time consuming and expensive for exporters and importers to meet. We show that search frictions lead to an endogenous fraction of unmatched exporters, alter the gains from trade, endogenize entry costs, and imply that the competitive equilibrium does not generally result in the socially optimal number of searching firms. Finally, ignoring search frictions results in biased estimates of the effect of ...