nep-mkt New Economics Papers
on Marketing
Issue of 2010‒12‒18
six papers chosen by
Joao Carlos Correia Leitao
University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon

  1. A New Approach to Consumer Theory By K. K. Lancaster
  2. Green Leader or Green Liar ? Differentiation and the role of NGOs. By Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline
  3. Adaptive Learning Models of Consumer Behaviour By Ed Hopkins
  4. Business intelligence as the support of decision-making processes in e-commerce systems environment By Suchánek, Petr; Slaninova, Kateřina; Bucki, Robert
  5. Price Setting Behaviour in Latvia: Descriptive Evidence from CPI Microdata By Konstantins Benkovskis; Ludmila Fadejeva; Krista Kalnberzina
  6. Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Prices By Ferguson, Shon

  1. By: K. K. Lancaster
    Date: 2010–12–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levarc:1385&r=mkt
  2. By: Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne - Paris School of Economics)
    Abstract: This paper addresses how corporate environmentalism can be a means of differentiation and of green-washing. Since consumers can seldom directly observe a firm's environmental quality (a problem not easily solved through eco-labeling), published environmental reports and advertising can mislead them. As a result, the role of the NGO becomes both crucial and ambiguous. On the one hand, by helping to increase consumer awareness, NGOs enlarge the market share of green differentiated firms. On the other hand, the risk that consumers will punish a firm perceived to be supplying inaccurate environmental information may bring about the paradoxical result of discouraging differentiation efforts.
    Keywords: Differentiation, environmental concern, imperfect competition, quality, advertising, NGO.
    JEL: L12 L15 L31 M37 Q50
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mse:cesdoc:10097&r=mkt
  3. By: Ed Hopkins
    Date: 2010–12–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levarc:506439000000000346&r=mkt
  4. By: Suchánek, Petr; Slaninova, Kateřina; Bucki, Robert
    Abstract: The present state of world economy urges managers to look for new methods, which can help to start the economic growth. To achieve this goal, managers use standard as well as new procedures. The fundamental prerequisite of the efficient decision-making processes are actual and right information. Managers need to monitor past information and current actual information to generate trends of future development based on it. Managers always should define strictly what do they want to know, how do they want to see it and for what purpose do they want to use it. Only in this case they can get right information applicable to efficient decision-making. Generally, managers´ decisions should lead to make the customers´ decision-making process easier. More frequently than ever, companies use e-commerce systems for the support of their business activities. In connection with the present state and future development, cross-border online shopping growth can be expected. To support this, companies will need much better systems providing the managers adequate and sufficient information. This type of information, which is usually multidimensional, can be provided by the Business Intelligence (BI) technologies. Besides special BI systems, some of BI technologies are obtained in quite a few of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. One of the crucial questions is whether should companies and firms buy or develop special BI software, or whether they can use BI tools contained in some ERP systems. In respect of this, there is a question if the modern ERP systems can provide the managers sufficient possibilities relating to ad-hoc reporting, static and dynamic reports and OLAP analyses. A one of the main goals of this article is to show and verify Business Intelligence tools of Microsoft Dynamics NAV for the support of decision-making in terms of the cross-border online purchasing. Pursuant to above-mentioned, in this article authors deal with problems relating to managers´ decision-making, customers´ decision-making and a support of its using the BI tools contained in ERP system Microsoft Dynamics NAV. A great deal of this article is aimed at area of multidimensional data which are the source data of e-commerce systems.
    Keywords: Business Intelligence; decision-making; e-commerce system; cross-border online purchasing; multi-dimensional data; reporting; data visualization
    JEL: C88 L10 C19 C49 C89 F18 D70 O30 E17 D80 M21
    Date: 2010–08–25
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27313&r=mkt
  5. By: Konstantins Benkovskis; Ludmila Fadejeva; Krista Kalnberzina
    Abstract: The question of price stickiness remains one of the most important in macroeconomics, as price flexibility partly determines how long it takes for inflation and real economic variables to return to their potential levels after a shock. To get a better understanding of price change frequency and size, the empirical work on price stickiness based on microdata from surveys on prices of individual products from individual outlets is needed. The main goal of this study is to provide descriptive evidence on the degree of nominal rigidity of consumer prices in Latvia at aggregate and disaggregate levels. To achieve this goal, we use the micro database on consumer prices provided by the CSB. The main finding of the paper is that during 2003–2009 Latvia's consumer prices were flexible. The average duration of a price spell was 3.5 months, and every month on average 28.7% of consumer prices were changed.
    Keywords: price setting behaviour, Latvia's consumer prices, frequency of price change, duration, size of price change, sales, time-dependent pricing, state-dependent pricing
    JEL: D40 E31
    Date: 2010–12–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ltv:dpaper:201001&r=mkt
  6. By: Ferguson, Shon (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm University)
    Abstract: Recent empirical evidence suggests that prices for many goods and services are higher in larger markets. This paper provides an explanation for this phenomenon when firms can choose how much to differentiate their products in a monopolistically competitive environment. The model proposes that consumers’ love of variety makes them more sensitive to product differentiation efforts by firms, which leads to higher prices in larger markets. Larger markets lead to greater variety and products that are more differentiated, which provides consumers with greater welfare despite the adverse effect of product differentiation on prices. The social planner does not charge a markup, which allows it to differentiate products more than is possible in the competitive equilibrium. The model also provides an explanation for why prices do not always fall when trade is liberalized.
    Keywords: Endogenous Technology; Market Size Effect; International Trade
    JEL: D43 F12 L13
    Date: 2010–12–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sunrpe:2010_0026&r=mkt

This nep-mkt issue is ©2010 by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.