THE DEFENSE OF PRICE DISCRIMINATION IN NETWORK AND INFORMATION GOODS MARKETS

It is not uncommon that articles focused on consumer-price interaction in the network and information goods market swiftly condemn price discrimination as an obfuscation, on-purpose price complexity, or market failure. The reason is a general neoclassical rule of an efficient market where prices are set at marginal cost with no price discrimination. However, the matter is more complicated. This review provides authors an overview of why, where, and which type of price discrimination should be viewed by different optics. Goods such as software, cell carrier services, electronic newspapers subscription, electric energy supply, payment accounts, books, copyrighted content streaming, etc, cannot be treated like manufactured goods. The reasons are specific conditions – substantial and/or repeated fixed/sunk cost, economies of scale, and demand heterogeneity. Recognized economist W. J. Baumol described marginal cost set prices under these conditions as an ‘economic suicide’. Reviewed articles showed that firms are forced to adopt price discrimination in order to recover their costs and to serve more consumer segments. Reviewed authors provided facts to support the use of multipart tariffs, dynamic pricing, versioning, bundling, and Ramsey pricing. These conclusions are used for suggestions on how several studies of information and network goods should be modified. Modifications are related mostly to model assumptions and pricing conclusions. I argue that, in the case of information and network goods, there is justified price discrimination. Hence, there is a certain justified level of price complexity that has to be accepted and not taken as automated evidence of inefficiency, market power, and consumer exploitation.

Analysis and Research on E-commerce Live Broadcast Sales Model from the Perspective of Supply Chain

The e-commerce live broadcast sales model is a brand-new sales model born based on web live broadcasts, and it has quickly been favored by the consumer goods market. As a new sales format, we need to conduct an in-depth analysis of its model to grasp the law of its generation and development, and find the problems in its development. This article mainly analyzes the basic form and internal logic of the e-commerce live broadcast sales model from the perspective of the supply chain. Relevant suggestions are proposed for its current development problems.

A Comparative Analysis of Consumption: Evidence from a Cultural Goods Market

This study uniquely employs a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) technique to account for complex relationships in consumption. The fsQCA technique assumes that relationships are based on a set–subset relationship. This assumption is fundamental when decision-makers are affected by information asymmetry and are, thus, required to jointly evaluate the credibility and reliability of a range of external signals. This issue also affects consumers in markets for cultural goods, where the quality of products is not known with certainty in advance of the purchase decision. Our study uses fsQCA to establish the effect of different quality signals on consumption in the US market for video game software. Our results show that reviews from professional critics alongside brand extension and multi-platform release strategies act as signals of product quality and, therefore, lead to high sales performance.

A Strategy for Planned Product Aging in View of Sustainable Development Challenges

In this paper, the issue of the deliberate aging of products by manufacturers is discussed. Deliberate aging consists in intentionally planning or designing a product with an artificially limited lifetime in order to force consumers to replace it faster. The resulting rapid acceleration of the cycle of obtaining and utilizing consumer goods has serious consequences in the form of negative externalities. For this reason, the conscious aging of products is now recognized as the cause of unjustified consumption, generating huge economic and social costs and leading to the devastation of the natural environment and excessive exploitation of natural resources. Thus, it is in clear contradiction to the model of sustainable development. The aim of this paper was to identify the purchasing attitudes of buyers in the durable goods market. For its implementation, a pilot questionnaire study, which covered a representative group of 354 respondents, was carried out. The results indicate that the factors that influence the purchase of restitution goods depend on the type of product and the consumer’s income. At the same time, about two thirds of the respondents recognized the problem of the deliberate aging of products. In their opinion, the goods produced in the autarkic economy were more durable and their life cycle was much longer. The results obtained require further empirical verification carried out in comparative studies.

Status signalling in the market for consumer goods

People are concerned with signalling their social status to others, and conspicuous consumption may be a prevalent means of signalling, such that purchasing decisions are motivated not only by the direct value of a product, but by the indirect value gained from what the product might communicate to others. Here we measure which products people might use as signals and ask how the signalling potential of products relates to the distribution of product offerings in the consumer goods market. In particular, we asked how the signalling potential of products influences the number, price, and dispersion of prices within and across department stores. Using data scraped from 11 department stores, we found that products with greater signalling potential are available in greater quantity, more expensive within a given store, and that more expensive stores stock more products with higher signalling potential, leading to greater global variance in prices for goods with greater signalling potential. Further, we use product visibility as an instrumental variable to estimate the causal effect of signalling potential on product offerings. Altogether, these results suggest that consumers demand to use visible goods as social signals, and being sensitive to this demand, suppliers of consumer goods position their product offerings to supply ample material for signalling via consumption.

Stock Market Investment and Inflation: Evidence from the United States and Canada

This paper examines the long-run relationship between goods prices and stock prices to understand whether stock market investment can help hedge against inflation in the United States (US) and Canada. This study employed an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration test developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001), and finds evidence of a positive long-run economic relationship between stock prices and goods prices in both economies over the sample period 1960 to 2019. The long-run elasticity is above one for both economies implying that the developments in the goods market significantly affect the stock market. We undertake a suite of sensitivity checks and find robust evidence that the stock market investment can help hedge against inflation in the United States and Canada.

Ensuring food security in Kazakhstan in the context of the EAEU

The aim is to study the problems of ensuring food security of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the conditions of the Eurasian Economic Union. Methods - monographic, economic-statistical, abstract-logical. Results - it is shown that each of the EAEU member States has identified priority areas and mechanisms for sustainable development. The main economic indicators of agroindustrial complex, indicating a significant increase in the volume of agricultural production in comparison with the previous time periodare considered. The level of per capita consumption of basic food products of the Union member States has been justified, which characterizes the economic and physical availability of food and confirms a favorable situation in this area. The regions producing the largest volumes of food products in monetary terms have been identified; sectors that provide more than half of all production in the countryare identified. Despite the positive trends, problems that have a significant impact on the growth of production potential of Kazakhstanare identified. An insufficient level of consumption of certain types of products in the republic is noted. Conclusions - in order to ensure the collective food security of the EAEU member States, measures aimed to develop cooperation and integration in the AIC, to create a favorable environment for increasing the competitiveness of the industry, marketing of agricultural products and foodhave been proposed. In agricultural policy, it is important to take into account the main risks and threats to sustainable economic development: exceeding the threshold value of imports; price imbalances in goods market; shortage of qualified personnel; underdevelopment of the system of monitoring and forecasting indicators of agri-food market.

Effect of Economic Complexity on Services Export Diversification: Do Foreign Direct Investment Inflows Matter?

This article has examined the effect of economic complexity on services export diversification. It has built on two arguments. The first one draws from Eichengreen and Gupta (2013b) and states that countries that export complex products would have a high penetration in the international goods market, and establish a network that could be exploited to expand their range of services export items. Second, by inducing higher inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI), greater economic complexity could contribute to fostering services export diversification. The empirical analysis supported these two arguments. The implications of the outcomes are discussed in the conclusion.

Commited an Antimonopolу Administrative Offence: Criterias for Determination

The achieving goals of competition protection and creation of conditions for effective market dynamics, as postulated by antimonopoly legislation, can only be achieved if the liability is determined in proportion to the commited offence. One of the most effective measures to prevent new offences is to held a law-breaker liable to a turnover-based fine. However, when applying this measure, one of the basic problems is the problem of calculating an administrative fine, namely, the question of determination the market, where was commited an administrative offence. The article presents the criteria for such a goods market, and also resolves the question of a balance between terms of antimonopoly legislation and administrative offences legislation.