Living by the “Golden Rule”: Multimarket Contact in the U. S. Airline Industry
Living by the “Golden Rule”: Multimarket Contact in the U. S. Airline Industry
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DOI：
10.2307/2118466
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发表时间：
1994-05
影响因子：
13.7
通讯作者：
W. Evans;I. Kessides
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
W. Evans;I. Kessides
本文实证检验了美国多市场联系对定价的影响。S.航空业。在1000个最大的国内城市对航线的机票价格的时间序列和横截面的变化分析揭示了存在统计上显着的和定量重要的多市场效应票价更高的城市对市场的航空公司提供广泛的航线间的联系。这些发现与行业专家的说法一致，即航空公司遵循"黄金法则"，即，他们避免在某一特定航线上采取激进的定价行动，因为他们担心竞争对手在其他共同竞争的航线上会采取什么行动。在他的证词中，史蒂文先生B。埃尔金斯（西北航空公司营销系统开发高级总监）举了一个例子，西北航空公司降低了从明尼阿波利斯和上中西部城市到西海岸各城市的一些航线上的夜间航班的票价。他说，大陆航空公司迅速作出反应，在重要的西北市场降价.埃尔金斯的备忘录建议西北定价分析师："我们将遵循黄金法则!在他的证词中，他解释说，"在这种情况下的黄金法则是，我不希望我的定价分析师在另一家航空公司的市场（如芝加哥）采取行动，因为担心其他航空公司可能会采取报复行动"[《华尔街日报》，1990年10月9日，第B1页]。
This paper examines empirically the effects of multimarket contact on pricing in the U. S. airline industry. The analysis of the time-series and cross-sectional variability of airline fares in the 1000 largest domestic city-pair routes reveals the presence of statistically significant and quantitatively important multimarket effects—fares are higher in city-pair markets served by carriers with extensive interroute contacts. These findings are consistent with the claims of industry experts that airlines live by the "golden rule"; i.e., that they refrain from initiating aggressive pricing actions in a given route for fear of what their competitors might do in other jointly contested routes. During his testimony, Mr. Steven B. Elkins (Senior Director of marketing systems development for Northwest Airlines) cited an example in which Northwest lowered fares on night flights that were flying with empty seats in a number of routes from Minneapolis and Upper Midwest cities to various West Coast cities. He said that Continental Airlines swiftly responded by cutting prices in important Northwest markets … Mr. Elkins's memo advises Northwest pricing analysts: "We Will Live by the Golden Rule!" In his testimony, he explained that, "the Golden Rule in that context was that I did not want my pricing analyst initiating actions in another carrier's market like Chicago for fear of what that other carrier might do to retaliate" [Wall Street Journal, October 9,1990, p. B1].