The Determinants of Consumer Price Dispersion: Evidence from French Supermarkets

Nicoletta Berardi, P. Sevestre and J. Th Bault

Working papers from Banque de France

Abstract: We characterize the dispersion of grocery prices in France based on a large original data set of prices in more than 1500 supermarkets. On average across products, the 90th percentile of relative prices is 17 percentage points higher than the 10th and the mean absolute deviation from quarterly average product prices is 5%. We show that temporal price variations (including sales and promotions) explain only little of the observed price dispersion, while the spatial permanent component of price dispersion largely dominates. Price dispersion across stores in France essentially results from persistent heterogeneity in retail chains' pricing, while local conditions regarding demand or competition contribute to a much lower extent.

Keywords: price dispersion; retail chain; wholesaler. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D40 E31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eur, nep-mac, nep-mkt and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: The Determinants of Consumer Price Dispersion: Evidence from French Supermarkets (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bfr:banfra:632

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