{"title":"Price promotions as a threat to brands","authors":"Roman Inderst, Martin Obradovits","doi":"10.1111/jems.12550","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jems.12550","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Manufacturers frequently resist heavy discounting of their products by retailers. Since low prices should increase demand and manufacturers could simply refuse to fund deep price promotions, such resistance is puzzling at first sight. We develop a model in which price promotions cause shoppers to evaluate the relative importance of quality and price against a market-wide reference point. With deep discounting, consumers perceive quality differences as less pronounced, eroding brand value and the bargaining position of brand manufacturers. This reduces their profits and may even lead to a delisting of their products. By linking price promotions to increased one-stop shopping and more intense retail competition, our theory also offers an explanation for the rise of store brands.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jems.12550","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127917726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The challenges of using ranks to estimate sales","authors":"Stan J. Liebowitz, Alejandro Zentner","doi":"10.1111/jems.12552","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jems.12552","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Researchers have frequently used data on product ranks to estimate nonpublic sales quantities, believing that there is a power-law-induced linear relationship between logged sales ranks and logged sales. Using essentially complete data on book sales, the most commonly used product in this literature, we find that the (double-logged) relationship between sales ranks and quantity sold is not linear, but robustly concave. We demonstrate that this concavity is likely to cause very poor sales predictions in many instances. We provide two concrete examples where applying this linear method to the concave relationship has led to serious errors in sales estimates. First, in the claim that the Internet's greater product variety in books has a large positive impact on social welfare, and second, in a claim about relative sales levels in top 20 and top 50 music “charts.” We also explore the use of nonlinear specifications as an alternative method to predict sales from ranks and find a simple specification that provides much better sales estimates. Finally, we examine the possibility that a particular type of biased sample might allow reasonable linear estimates of industry sales and conclude that it is possible but quite unlikely.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136000274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tying in two-sided markets with heterogeneous advertising revenues and negative pricing","authors":"Jong-Hee Hahn, Sang-Hyun Kim, So Hye Yoon","doi":"10.1111/jems.12547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12547","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We offer a theory of anticompetitive tying in two-sided markets when below-cost or negative pricing is possible. With the coexistence of two consumer groups (one regarding tying and tied goods as complementary and the other as independent), a tying-good monopolist may face difficulties in extracting rent under separate sales and wish to use tying to directly capture the large advertising revenue created in the complementary segment. We uncover two distinct mechanisms by which tying raises monopoly profits but reduces social welfare. Our theory of tying can be applied to real-world antitrust law enforcement, such as the Google Android case.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50152723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Consumers' preference for downsizing over package price increases","authors":"In Kyung Kim","doi":"10.1111/jems.12548","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jems.12548","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, I study how and why consumers react differently to package downsizing and package price increases that result in the same degree of unit price increases. Utilizing differential responses of South Korean milk manufacturers to the production cost rise in 2018, I first show that consumers strongly prefer downsizing to package price increases, and this tendency does not diminish over time. Then, I develop a theoretical model whose prediction is consistent with the empirical findings, providing a simple but novel explanation of why fully informed consumers would be less sensitive to downsizing than package price increases.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130028865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sequential mergers under incomplete information","authors":"Jiajia Cong, Wen Zhou","doi":"10.1111/jems.12549","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jems.12549","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We study sequential mergers under incomplete information where the follower is ignorant about the leader's merger synergy. When the follower's own synergy is sufficiently large, incomplete information induces both firms to merge more. These additional mergers benefit both firms and total welfare but hurt consumers. If the follower's synergy is very small, the leader is unable to take any strategic action, and most results are reversed. The analysis suggests that incomplete information strengthens the strategic complementarity between the two mergers and thereby increases the likelihood of a merger wave.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127015693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"M&A and technological expansion","authors":"Ginger Zhe Jin, Mario Leccese, Liad Wagman","doi":"10.1111/jems.12551","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jems.12551","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examine how public firms listed in North American stock exchanges acquire technology companies during 2010–2020. Combining data from Standard and Poor's (S&P), Refinitiv, Compustat, and Center for Research in Security Prices, and utilizing a unique S&P taxonomy that classifies tech mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by tech categories and business verticals, we show that 13.1% of public firms engage in any tech M&A in the S&P data, while only 6.75% of public firms make any (tech or nontech) M&A in Refinitiv. In both data sets, the acquisitions are widespread across sectors of the economy, but tech acquirers in the S&P data are on average younger, more investment efficient, and more likely to engage in international acquisitions than general acquirers in Refinitiv. Within the S&P data, deals in each M&A-active tech category tend to be led by acquirers from a specific sector; the majority of target companies in tech M&As fall outside the acquirer's core area of business; and firms are, in part, driven to acquire tech companies because they face increased competition in their core areas.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jems.12551","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136066402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Upstream conduct and price authority with competing organizations","authors":"Enrique Andreu, Damien Neven, Salvatore Piccolo, Roberto Venturini","doi":"10.1111/jems.12546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12546","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We characterize the degree of price authority that competing upstream principals award their downstream agents in a setting where these agents own private information about demand and incur nonverifiable distribution costs. Principals cannot internalize these costs through monetary incentives and design “permission sets” from which agents choose prices. The objective is to understand the forces shaping delegation and the constraints imposed on equilibrium prices. When principals behave noncooperatively, agents are biased toward excessively high prices because they pass on distribution costs to consumers. Hence, the permission set only features a price cap that is more likely to bind as products become closer substitutes, in sectors where distribution is sufficiently costly, and when demand is not too volatile. By contrast, when principals behave cooperatively, the optimal delegation scheme is richer and more complex. Because principals want to charge the monopoly price, the optimal permission set features a price floor when the distribution cost is sufficiently low, it features instead full discretion for moderate values of this cost, and only when it is high enough, a price cap is optimal. Surprisingly, while competition (as captured by stronger product substitutability) hinders delegation in the noncooperative regime, the opposite occurs when principals maximize industry profit.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jems.12546","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50144896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trade spends and profitability of promotions","authors":"Maxim Sinitsyn","doi":"10.1111/jems.12525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12525","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper examines the prevalent mechanism of financing advertising and temporary price reductions through trade spend budgets. A manufacturer and a retailer interact for a number of periods with a plan to hold a sale in the last period. During the nonpromotional periods, the retailer accumulates the funds in this budget in proportion to the size of its order from the manufacturer. In the sale period, the budget is used to finance the discount offered by the manufacturer and advertising. I find that the manufacturer drops its price in the sale period to increase the profitability of promotions for the retailer. To be able to sell more units during the sale period, the retailer needs to accumulate a larger trade spend. This is accomplished by setting a smaller mark-up over the manufacturer's price in the regular periods. The manufacturer takes advantage of the retailer's softer pricing by increasing its regular wholesale price. As long as such trade spends are used to finance advertising, the total profits of each firm increase. Using fixed trade spends, where the manufacturer allocates a fixed amount for the retailer, does not lead to an increase in profits.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jems.12525","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50135235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrea Essl, Frauke von Bieberstein, Michael Kosfeld, Markus Kröll
{"title":"Social preferences and sales performance","authors":"Andrea Essl, Frauke von Bieberstein, Michael Kosfeld, Markus Kröll","doi":"10.1111/jems.12523","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12523","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We use an incentivized experimental game to uncover heterogeneity in social preferences among salespeople in a large Austrian retail chain. Our results show that the majority of agents take the welfare of others into account but a significant fraction reveal selfish behavior. Matching individual behavior in the game with firm data on sales performance shows that agents with social preferences achieve a significantly higher revenue per customer. However, at the same time, they achieve fewer sales per day. Both effects offset each other, so that the overall association with total sales revenue becomes insignificant. Our findings highlight the nuanced role of selfish versus social preferences in sales contexts with important implications for economic research.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jems.12523","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50145642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What innovation paths for AI to become a GPT?","authors":"Timothy Bresnahan","doi":"10.1111/jems.12524","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jems.12524","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Early commercial applications of artificial intelligence technologies (AITs) were narrow but extremely profitable. Comparable uses of those technologies throughout the economy would lead to a growth boom. Firms which emulated the early applications successfully would make tremendous strategic gains. This is a situation familiar from earlier rounds of information and communication technology. However, for AITs to become a general-purpose technology across many commercial applications sectors will require some new innovations. This paper examines the innovation paths that could lead to that desirable outcome, the ones that have stalled, the ones in the process now, and the ones that might occur in the future. Strikingly, early AIT use, both commercial and with technical customers, occurred where Digital Transformation was not required for it to succeed. The innovation paths all require Digital Transformation as key steps.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114690449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}