新经济社会学的价格理论论析

新经济社会学指出社会网络制约价格,价格是社会建构的产物,企业定价遵从产业内部已有的定价规则,而且价格具有多方面的象征含意。这些价格观点受到新经济社会学理论流派分隔的影响,并未融于一个完整的体系之中,彼此间相互区隔。社会建构主义的价格观、组织社会学的新制度主义的价格观有助于我们认识大宗商品的期货交易价格和新兴产业中定价体系的扩散。文化社会学的价格观认为价格呈现了商品的质量,还呈现了与商品有关的行动者的社会特征。这种定价观更适用于分析时装和奢侈品等消费品、艺术品以及所谓无价物品的定价问题。结构经济社会学家与经济学家在价格问题上进行了更密切的对话,致力于从嵌入性角度关注信任和互惠的期待等治理安排、信息的分布与传递,以此来把握交易成本和生产成本的变动。新经济社会学的各种价格理论有别于经济学的价格理论的共同之处在于:都强调引起商品价格变动的社会因素,力图修正或拓展经济学的价格理论。     

THE EFFECTS OF STATE AUTOMOBILE DEALER ENTRY REGULATION ON NEW CAR PRICES

This paper examines the impact of state regulations restricting entry into new car retailing. The central hypothesis is that these regulations create artificial scarcity rents for existing dealers, which are collected through higher car prices. A reduced form multiple regression model is specified with retail price as the dependent variable. The model is estimated using transactions price data for a sample of over 5,000 Chevrolet dealers and seven car lines in 1978. The results confirm the hypothesis that entry restrictions cause higher car prices.     

Kunst und Preise

How are prices established in the market for contemporary art? Buyers in this market are confronted with fundamental uncertainty since “quality” is only difficult to determine and the development of prices is non-predictable. Since the emergence of a market for contemporary art presupposes at least the possibility for intentional rational decision-making, this uncertainty must be reduced. We argue that the value of a piece of art or an artist is established in an intersubjective process of granting reputation by experts and institutions in the field of art. This is achieved primarily through the institutions of the art market and the training of artists, i.e. through galleries, curators, critics, art dealers, journalists, collectors, and art schools. They participate jointly in the making of artistic reputation of the artist’s work that provides, in turn, the basis for the determination of its economic value. For testing this hypothesis we assembled and analyzed two datasets with data on the biographies of artists and prices for their works.     

Art dealers as competitors and community builders: Understanding the overlapping social logics of the contemporary art world

Art dealers are often described as gatekeepers who are focused on their own position as well as the status of their artists and collectors. We argue that this is an incomplete account of art dealing. The goal of this article is to explain how art dealing is a “toolkit” that does not exclusively focus on status building and social capital, but also includes behavior associated with accessing the visual arts field and community development. First, art dealers often have a background that has strong social ties to art, which provides them with intimate knowledge of the art world and social connections with artists, collectors, and other art world actors. For that reason, entry into art dealing reflects intimate knowledge of art practices, what we call “proximate connoisseurship.” Second, art dealerships reflect both competitive and communal factors. Art dealers may choose to work with artists based on their ability to generate income, social capital, and prestige (“competitive logic”), but art dealers may also employ a “communal logic” focused on friendships and creating community. This theory of art dealers is illustrated with excerpts from interviews with 34 dealers randomly selected from the rosters of international art fairs such as Art Basel Miami, EXPO Chicago, Aqua, and the New Art Dealers Alliance show.     

REPUTATION,PRICE, AND DEATH: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF ART PRICE FORMATION

We analyze how an artist's death influences the market prices of her works of art. Death has two opposing effects on art prices. By irrevocably restricting the artist's oeuvre, prices, ceteris paribus, increase when the artist dies. On the other hand, an untimely death may well frustrate the collectors' hopes of owning artwork that will, as the artist's career progresses, become generally known and appreciated. By frustrating expected future name recognition, death impacts negatively on art prices. In conjunction, these two channels of influence give rise to a hump‐shaped relationship between age at death and death‐induced price changes. Using transactions from fine art auctions, we show that the empirically identified death effects indeed conform to our theoretical predictions. We derive our results from hedonic art price regressions, making use of a dataset which exceeds the sample size of traditional studies in cultural economics by an order of magnitude. (JEL Z11, J24, G12)     

PRICE MATCHING AND THE DOMINO EFFECT IN A RETAIL GASOLINE MARKET

Using gasoline station price data collected eight times per day for 103 d for 27 stations in Guelph, Ontario, it is found that, consistent with an informal theory of competitive gasoline pricing, stations set prices to match a small number of other stations. However, these matched stations are not necessarily the closest. While retailers frequently respond to price changes within 2 h, many take considerably longer. Finally, while price decreases do ripple across the market like falling dominos, increases propagate across the city based more on geographic location and source of price control than on proximity to leaders of these increases. ( JEL L13, L40, L81)     

ASYMMETRIC ADJUSTMENTS OF PRICE AND OUTPUT

Classical theories predict rapid price adjustments, which are observed in inflationary episodes; Keynesian theories of sticky prices predict sluggish price responses, which are observed in contractions. We attempt to reconcile these observations in a model with asymmetries in producer price and output adjustments. Analysis of SIC two-digit industry data indicates production frequently exhibits negative asymmetry-shortfalls from trend are larger than positive deviations-whereas price often displays positive avmmetry. Evidence supporting two rational motives for asymmetric pricing is presented, but causal interactions between output and price asymmetries are not resolved. (JEL E3)     

Microstructures of economic action: talk,interaction and the bottom line

This paper contributes to an expanding body of research that has analysed the interactional foundations of economic activity, and price determination, by quantifying the financial implications of different micro‐interactional practices. Drawing on video recordings of naturalistic interaction the paper analyses a simple consumer choice, whether to pay one of two prices, the lower ‘standard’ price (£8.00) or the higher ‘gift aid’ (£8.80) price, to enter an arts institution. Utilizing resources from conversation analysis, the paper analyses different ways of posing this choice. It describes how, as interactional constraints tighten, standard prices become less socially desirable and customers increasingly ‘volunteer’ to pay the higher price. The paper contributes to sociological understandings of economic activity, demonstrating how simple one‐off choices, and prices, are accountably responsive to micro‐interactional structures.     

DID THE EURO FOSTER ONLINE PRICE COMPETITION? EVIDENCE FROM AN INTERNATIONAL PRICE COMPARISON SITE

We study the impact of the Euro on prices charged by online retailers within the European Union. Our data span the period before and after the Euro was introduced, cover a variety of products, and include countries inside and outside of the Eurozone. After controlling for cost, demand, and market structure effects, we show that the pure Euro changeover effect is to raise average prices in the Eurozone by 3 % and average minimum prices by 7%. Finally, we develop a model of online pricing in the context of currency unions and show that these price patterns are broadly consistent with those of clearinghouse models. (JEL D400, D830, F150, L130, M370 )     

Liminal Lives: South Asian Youth and Domestic Violence

This article examines domestic violence experiences among South Asian youth in the United States. The paper uses a broad definition of violence, a continuum which includes aggression, coercion, control, intimidation, assault, to accommodate the meanings suggested by the youth. The main argument of this paper is that the youth's experiences cannot be adequately explained with reference to individual deviance or traditional cultural norms of ethnic groups. Based on a sociological perspective of gender, this paper argues that these youth are placed between mainstream and ethnic gender regimes and their experience of domestic violence depends on how these regimes work in relation to each other. Thus their liminal social structural position emerges as a significant factor in their experiences of violence.     

Liminal Lives: South Asian Youth and Domestic Violence

This article examines domestic violence experiences among South Asian youth in the United States. The paper uses a broad definition of violence, a continuum which includes aggression, coercion, control, intimidation, assault, to accommodate the meanings suggested by the youth. The main argument of this paper is that the youth’s experiences cannot be adequately explained with reference to individual deviance or traditional cultural norms of ethnic groups. Based on a sociological perspective of gender, this paper argues that these youth are placed between mainstream and ethnic gender regimes and their experience of domestic violence depends on how these regimes work in relation to each other. Thus their liminal social structural position emerges as a significant factor in their experiences of violence.     

PEAK LOAD PRICING IN COMPETITIVE MARKETS

The paper offers an explanation for temporal price dispersion. Temporal price dispersion in the model is due neither to exogenous shifts in demand nor to price discrimination motives as shown in other papers. In this paper the explanation relies on peak-load pricing. In the model presented, consumers decide to purchase a given product in a certain time period according to the satisfaction they derive from the product at that time and to the prices and number of customers they expect at each firm and period. The demand in each period is controlled by sellers through prices. By offering different prices in different periods, sellers motivate consumers to spread themselves across periods in a profitable way. Therefore, the demand and price in each time period is determined endogeneously.     

THE INCENTIVES FOR RESALE PRICE MAINTENANCE UNDER IMPERFECT INFORMATION

This paper considers both the incentives for and the welfare effects of resale price maintenance (RPM) in retail markets characterized by imperfect consumer information. In markets where point-of-sale information on the product is essential for sales and information on prices is costly, RPM permits manufacturers with some monopoly power to resolve two incentive conflicts with retailers. First, because retailers with price-setting powers do not appropriate the gains in profit to an upstream manufacturer from actions taken to increase demand, their incentives to inform consumers of the product and to set low prices are inadequate. This purely vertical externality results in the classic "double mark-up" of final prices. Second, when consumers' costs of price search vary, stores offering low prices and no information can exist in the market equilibrium. These discount houses free-ride on the informational services of high-price informing retail outlets — a horizontal externality. In the imperfect information setting of this paper, (1) administered pricing improves monopolists' profits by resolving the incentive conflict; (2) the profitable use of a price floor reduces the maximum retail price charged and may reduce the average retail price; (3) price floors or administered prices can be Pareto-improving and more likely welfare (surplus)-improving; (4) price floors are welfare-improving.     

Automated Pricing Rules in Electronic Posted Offer Markets

Internet markets are heralded as enhancing efficiency by providing buyers and sellers with an abundance of information. In these electronic markets, firms have the opportunity to employ "pricebots," computerized algorithms that automatically adjust prices to prevailing market conditions. This article uses laboratory methods to examine the potential market impact of the endogenous selection of three automated pricing algorithms: undercutting, low-price matching, and trigger pricing. We find that the undercutting algorithm leads to prices similar to the game-theoretic prediction. Low-price matching generates significantly higher prices, and trigger pricing results in market prices below the game-theoretic prediction.     

The Spirit of Blumer's Method as a Guide to Sociological Discovery

Herbert Blumer did not offer textbook-style instructions for how to do research. What he offered, in his classic 1969 essay “The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism,” is a broad account of what research must entail to accord with symbolic interactionist premises that human social life depends on meanings, interpretation, and interaction. Blumer's essay also voices a spirit of research that is ardently empirical, sociological, and creative. It is this spirit, I argue, that holds great value for guiding sociological research toward fresh discoveries. I make this argument by reviewing what Blumer meant by exploration and inspection, and then drawing out five Blumerian principles of inquiry. By embracing these principles we can avoid the problems of inadvertent theorizing, unreflective mesearch, analytic foreclosure, excessive subjectivism, and aprocessuality. I also suggest how we can enhance the sociological value of Blumer's method by paying more attention to power, inequality, and our own institutional biases. Embracing the spirit of Blumer's method, I conclude, can help a new generation of symbolic interactionists do more imaginative and insightful work.     

DESIGNED TO FAIL: THE MEDICARE AUCTION FOR DURABLE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

We examine the theoretical properties of the auction for Medicare Durable Medical Equipment. Two unique features of the Medicare auction are (1) winners are paid the median winning bid and (2) bids are nonbinding. We show that median pricing results in allocation inefficiencies as some high‐cost firms potentially displace low‐cost firms as winners. Further, the auction may leave demand unfulfilled as some winners refuse to supply because the price is set below their cost. We also introduce a model of nonbinding bids that establishes the rationality of a lowball bid strategy employed by many bidders in the actual Medicare auctions and recently replicated in Caltech experiments. We contrast the median‐price auction with the standard clearing‐price auction where each firm bids true costs as a dominant strategy, resulting in competitive equilibrium prices and full efficiency. (JEL D44, I11, H57)     

Price Discrimination with Differentiated Products: Definition and Identification

There is no widely accepted definition of price discrimination with differentiated products. Either absolute price-cost differences or percentage price-cost markups are used as benchmarks for comparison. I show that the two criteria are qualitatively different: One may indicate price discrimination when the other does not. Moreover, anything other than marginal cost pricing will be identified as price discrimination by at least one of the two. I propose choosing a criterion based on the cost of arbitrage in the market under examination. Because this is often difficult to determine, it is advisable to always report results with both measures.     

LAYERED MEANINGS

Recent sociological inquiry into the family has focused on the decline of the male breadwinner family and the increasing diversity of family forms. Yet the term ‘family’ remains vague and assumes different meanings. This paper discusses the meanings of the term ‘family’ as it is used by interviewees in qualitative, in-depth interviews on family and kinship networks. The interviews were conducted as part of ethnographic fieldwork in a study of family and kinship in Swansea. Three contrasting areas of Swansea were selected, an affluent, popular area, one of the most deprived council estates and an inner-city area with a relatively high proportion of minority ethnic families. In the paper we draw out differences and similarities in the meanings given to the term ‘family’ by interviewees in the three areas. Differing meanings emerge, but what is striking is the layering of meanings. People refer to varying groups of relatives when they speak about their family but ‘family’ refers to a set of norms and practices about bringing up children, staying in contact or giving support. In the interview situation, the interviewees use these varying meanings in different contexts.     

SQUEALER DEALERS: THE MARKET FOR INFORMATION IN FEDERAL DRUG TRAFFICKING PROSECUTIONS

Federal data on drug trafficking sentences are used to determine factors that affect market quantities of providing information against other defendants (i.e., defendant probabilities of receiving testimony‐related sentence reductions) and market prices of information (i.e., the sizes of such sentence reductions). Women and better‐educated defendants experience high demand (higher quantities and prices) for information. Blacks, Hispanics, and non‐U.S. citizens experience low demand. Defendants expecting longer sentences have higher supply of information. Conditional on expected sentence, crack dealers, high‐level dealers, and dealers with long criminal histories experience low demand, while low‐level dealers experience high demand. Women of all races experience high demand for information. (JEL K14, J15, J16)     

SOME EVIDENCE ON LUMP SUM VERSUS CONVEX COSTS OF CHANGING PRICES

Two models in which price stickiness results from price adjustment costs are tested. One, an (s,S) pricing model, assumes lump-sum adjustment costs and predicts firms will make relatively large, infrequent price changes. The other assumes convex adjustment costs and predicts frequent, partial price adjustments. Survey data of firms' price behavior reveal patterns consistent with the (s,S) model. However, many of the patterns are also consistent with partial-adjustment rules, although the high percentage of firms which fix prices for a quarter or more casts doubt on the plausibility of the partial-adjustment hypothesis.