A study on behavioral dynamics of relative prices and retail market integration

在这个项目中，我们分析了日本47个城市的零售和消费价格的行为动态。我们分析的主要目的是检查地理上分离的零售市场是否正在形成一个单一的综合日本市场，或者它们是否仍然被有形和无形的市场摩擦所分割，例如国内的运输成本。具体地说，我们编制了1975-2000年期间各类消费品和服务零售价格的数据，并分析了49个城市的相对价格的行为动态。本文的主要实证结果如下：(1)总体水平上的跨城市相对消费者价格(即相对消费者价格指数)大多是非平稳的，这意味着当计入服务价格时，日本各城市之间的相对购买力平价并不是稳定的；(2)相对价格的行为动态，特别是持续性，在不同商品和服务之间差异很大；(3)虽然有商品表现出零售市场一体化程度的提高，但有相当数量的产品的价格分散度一直在增加；(4)尽管特定城市价格冲击的衰减速度因商品和服务而异，并在一定程度上由城市间的实际距离决定，但仍有许多原因无法解释。总而言之，这些结果表明，日本国内的零售市场并不是一个包含所有类型消费品的综合整体，也不是在该领域内物理上分离的所有本地市场。换句话说，对于一些商品和城市来说，日本国内的零售市场仍然是细分的。

In this project, we have analyzed the behavioral dynamics of retail and consumer prices of 47 cities throughout Japan. The main purpose of our analysis is to examine whether the geographically separated retail markets are forming a single integrated Japanese market, or do they remain segmented by tangible and intangible market frictions such as transport cost that exit within the country. Specifically, we have compiled the data of retail prices of various consumer goods and services for the period of 1975-2000, and analyzed the behavioral dynamics of their relative prices across the 49 cities. The primary empirical findings can be summarized as follows : (1)the cross-city relative consumer price at the aggregate level (i.e.relative consumer price indices) are mostly found to be non-stationary, implying that the relative purchasing power parity across cities in Japan is not holding when prices of services are included ; (2)the behavioral dynamics, especially the persistence property, of the relative prices varies quite substantially across goods and services ; (3)while there are goods that exhibit an increasing degree of retail market integration, there are a substantial number of products whose price dispersion has been increasing ; (4)while the rate at which city-specific price shocks decay varies by goods and services and is determined partly by cross-city physical distance, much remains unexplained. All in all, these results suggest that retail market within Japan is not characterized as an integrated whole that involves all types of consumer goods or all local markets that are physically separated within the domain. In other words, for some goods and cities, the retail market within Japan remains segmented.