Private Label Price Rigidity during Holiday Periods

Arbeitspapier

Using weekly retail transaction scanner price data from a large U.S supermarket chain, we find significantly higher retail price rigidity for private label products than for nationally branded products during the Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday periods relative to the rest of the year. The finding cannot be explained by changes in holiday period promotional practices because we find that private label promotions appear to diminish at least as much as national brands. The increased rigidity of private label products relative to national brands is only partially accounted for by increased rigidity of wholesale prices. After ruling out other potential explanations, we suggest that the higher private label price rigidity might be due to the increased emphasis on social consumption during holiday periods, raising the customers’ value of nationally branded products relative to the private labels.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 2005-01

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; General Aggregative Models: Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian ; Price Level; Inflation; Deflation ; Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms ; Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior: General ; Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics: Industrial Structure and Structural Change; Industrial Price Indices ; Business Economics ; Marketing
• Subject: Price Rigidity ; Holidays ; Private Label ; National Brand ; Social Consumption

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Müller, Georg ; Bergen, Mark ; Dutta, Shantanu ; Levy, Daniel
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics
• (where): Ramat-Gan
• (when): 2005

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/259349
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET