scholarly journals Farm Product Prices, Redistribution, and the Early U.S. Great Depression

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Joshua K. Hausman ◽  
Paul W. Rhode ◽  
Johannes F. Wieland

We argue that falling farm product prices, incomes, and spending may explain 10–30 percent of the 1930 U.S. output decline. Crop prices collapsed, reducing farmers’ incomes. And across U.S. states and Ohio counties, auto sales fell most in crop-growing areas. The large spending response may be explained by farmers’ indebtedness. Reasonable assumptions about the marginal propensity to spend of farmers relative to nonfarmers and the pass-through of farm prices to retail prices imply that the collapse of farm product prices in 1930 was a powerful propagation mechanism worsening the Depression.

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-297
Author(s):  
Robin M. Back ◽  
Xinyang Liu ◽  
Britta Niklas ◽  
Karl Storchmann ◽  
Nick Vink

AbstractIn this paper, we analyze profit margins and markups of Fair Trade (FT) wines sold in the United States. We are particularly interested in whether and to what extent the FT cost impulse in production is passed along to the supply chain. We draw on a limited sample of about 470 South African wines sold in Connecticut and New Jersey in the fall of 2016; about 90 of them are certified FT. For these wines we have free on board export prices, wholesale prices, and retail prices, which allows us to compute wholesale and retail margins and analyze the FT treatment effect. We run OLS, 2SLS, and propensity score matching models and find evidence of asymmetrical pricing behavior. While wholesalers seem to fully pass-through the FT cost effect, retailers appear to amplify the cost effect. As a result, at the retail level, FT wines yield significantly higher margins than their non-FT counterparts. (JEL Classifications: L11, L31, L43, L81, Q17)


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 2359-2393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Janssen ◽  
Sandro Shelegia

Abstract This paper studies vertical relations in a search market. As the wholesale arrangement between a manufacturer and its retailers is typically unobserved by consumers, their beliefs about who is to be blamed for a price deviation play a crucial role in determining wholesale and retail prices. The common assumption in the consumer search literature is that consumers exclusively blame an individual retailer for a price deviation. We show that in the vertical relations context, predictions based on this assumption are not robust in the sense that if consumers hold the upstream manufacturer at least partially responsible for the deviation, equilibrium predictions are qualitatively different. For robust beliefs, the vertical model can explain a variety of observations, such as retail price rigidity (or, alternatively, low cost pass-through), nonmonotonicity of retail prices in search costs, and (seemingly) collusive retail behavior. The model can be used to study a monopoly online platform that sells access to final consumers.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-99
Author(s):  
Tobias Renkin ◽  
Claire Montialoux ◽  
Michael Siegenthaler

This paper estimates the pass-through of minimum wage increases into the prices of US grocery and drug stores. We use high-frequency scanner data and leverage a large number of state-level increases in minimum wages between 2001 and 2012. We find that a 10% minimum wage hike translates into a 0.36% increase in the prices of grocery products. This magnitude is consistent with a full pass-through of cost increases into consumer prices. We show that price adjustments occur mostly in the three months following the passage of minimum wage legislation rather than after implementation, suggesting that pricing of groceries is forward-looking.


Author(s):  
Omer Omer

This study investigates the comparative pass-through of policy rate to the retailprices, spillover of prices between Islamic and conventional banking systems, and theimpact of excess liquidity on these pass-throughs using data from interbank marketof Pakistan. The results suggest that the monetary policy shock affect retail prices ofIslamic banks similar to conventional banks, confirming the results of earlier studies.Moreover, there is a strong spillover between the prices of two systems; Islamicbanks are following (leading) the conventional banks in pricing the lending (deposit)products. Islamic bank has acquired advantage in the deposit pricing by taping thereligious depositors, which also may have promoted financial inclusion therebycontributing to the economic growth and improved income distribution in the society.Our findings suggest that the presence of excess liquidity have no effect on passthroughof policy rate in the Islamic system, which is contrary to the prevalent notion.However, excess liquidity significantly affects the spillovers of prices between thesystems. These results support the hypothesis that the Islamic banks are investing ininterest-based government securities indirectly via conventional banks. Our findingsmay help in enhancing the regulatory efficiency of the central banks and the conduct ofthe monetary policy in the countries where dual banking system exists.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-236
Author(s):  
M. Shahe Emran ◽  
Dilip Mookherjee ◽  
Forhad Shilpi ◽  
M. Helal Uddin

Traders are often blamed for high prices, prompting government regulation. We study the effects of a government ban of a layer of financing intermediaries in edible oil supply chain in Bangladesh during 2011–2012. Contrary to the predictions of a standard model of an oligopolistic supply chain, the ban caused downstream wholesale and retail prices to rise, and pass-through of the changes in imported crude oil price to fall. These results can be explained by an extension of the standard model to incorporate trade credit frictions, where intermediaries expand credit access of downstream traders. (JEL L13, L14, L66, O13, Q11, Q13, Q17)


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Hausman ◽  
Paul W. Rhode ◽  
Johannes Wieland

2019 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 142-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Hindriks ◽  
Valerio Serse
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlotta Mariotto ◽  
Marianne Verdier

Abstract When a consumer pays by card, the merchant’s bank pays to the consumer’s bank an interchange fee. In this article, we construct a general model of a card platform that unifies the literature on interchange fees. We enrich the existing frameworks by analyzing the choice of the interchange fee when consumer demand is elastic to retail prices. We show that the difference between the privately set structure of payment card fees and the socially optimal one depends both on banks’ and merchants’ pass-through of their costs to consumers. We argue that the maturity of the payment card market impacts the redistributive effects of interchange fees (i.e. between consumers and merchants, card and cash users) and therefore, their optimal regulation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 317-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Cawley ◽  
Anne Marie Thow ◽  
Katherine Wen ◽  
David Frisvold

During the past decade, dozens of countries, regions, and cities have enacted taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). They have been primarily motivated by a desire to raise prices, reduce sales and consumption, improve population health, and raise revenue. This review outlines the economic rationale for SSB taxes and illustrates their predicted effects. It reviews the research on the effects of these taxes on retail prices, sales, cross-border shopping, consumption, and product availability. The evidence indicates that the amount by which taxes increase retail prices (also called the pass-through of the tax) varies by jurisdiction, ranging from less than 50% to 100% of the tax. Sales tend to decrease significantly in the taxing jurisdiction, although this seems to be partly offset by residents increasingly shopping outside of the taxing jurisdiction (i.e., engaging in cross-border shopping).Overall, taxes lower consumption of the taxed beverages by adults, although not for all types of beverages or all groups of consumers. We conclude with suggestions for improving the design of such taxes and directions for future research.


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