INVESTIGATING BEHAVIORAL EXPLANATIONS FOR ASYMMETRIC PRICE COMPETITION

不对称的价格竞争-在消费品包装是一个众所周知的现象。研究者提出了三种行为解释：（1）消费者偏好的异质性，（2）收入效应，（3）参照和损失厌恶效应。这些解释是由不同的研究人员使用不同类型的数据和不同的方法独立提供的。尽管市场营销界对不对称价格竞争很感兴趣，但并没有试图对这三种解释进行比较，并得出一个最有可能的结论。首先，讨论了研究非对称价格竞争时应考虑的重要因素。这些问题包括：（1）在分析市场份额等汇总数据时，混淆供给方和需求方的因素;（2）以竞争品牌的单位价格变化来衡量品牌的市场份额变化，从而适当衡量不对称价格竞争。其次，基于这些考虑，理论论据反对以前的解释。(1)异质性效应：分析总数据并使用交叉价格弹性。这个解释是间接推断出来的. (2)收入效应：假设商品无限可分性。(3)损失厌恶效应：家庭异质性没有得到很好的解释，这些主张得到了来自四个类别的扫描面板数据的实证支持。第三，提出了另一种解释，表明消费者效用的微观经济理论的一个基本假设，价格的边际收益递减效应，导致不对称竞争。结果表明，在所有四种产品类别中，价格的边际收益递减效应均强于对数。

Asymmetric price competition-in consumer packaged goods is a well-known phenomenon. Researchers have proposed three behavioral explanations: (1) heterogeneity in consumer preference, (2) the income effect, and (3) the reference and loss-aversion effects. These explanations have been offered independently by different researchers using different types of data with different methodology. Despite the interest in asymmetric price competition by the marketing community, no attempt has been made to compare across the three explanations and draw an inference on which one is most likely.The objectives of this paper are three-folds. Firstly, important factors when studying asymmetric price competition are discussed. These include, (1) confounding of the supply-side and demand-side factors when analyzing aggregate data, such as market share, and (2) an appropriate measure for asymmetric price competition as the change in market share of a brand for a unit price change of a competing brand. Second, based on these considerations, theoretical arguments against previous explanations are provided.(1) The Heterogeneity Effect: Aggregate data is analyzed and cross-price elasticity is used. The explanation is inferred indirectly.(2) Income effect: Infinite divisibility of goods is assumed.(3) Loss-aversion effect: Household heterogeneity is not well accounted for.These claims are then supported empirically using scanner-panel data from four categories. Third, an alternative explanation is proposed to show that a basic assumption of consumer utility in Microeconomic theory, the diminishing-marginal-return effect in price, results in asymmetric competition. It was shown that the concavity (i.e., the diminishing-marginal-return effect) in price was stronger than that of logarithm in all four product categories.