Publications
Publications
- American Economic Review
Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-Channel Retailers
By: Alberto Cavallo
Abstract
Online prices are increasingly used for measurement and research applications, yet little is known about their relation to prices in physical stores, where most retail transactions occur. I conduct the first large-scale comparison of prices simultaneously collected from the websites and physical stores of 56 large multi-channel retailers in 10 countries. I find that price levels are identical about 72 percent of the time. Price changes are not synchronized but have similar frequencies and average sizes. These results have implications for national statistical offices, researchers using online data, and anyone interested in the effect of the Internet on retail prices.
Keywords
Online Prices; Offline Prices; Multi-channel Retailers; Price; Internet; Measurement and Metrics; Retail Industry
Citation
Cavallo, Alberto. "Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-Channel Retailers." American Economic Review 107, no. 1 (January 2017): 283–303.
Supplemental Information
Zip file contains the raw data and STATA 14 do files (scripts) needed to replicate all the results in the paper and appendix.