TY  - JOUR
AU  - Nevo,Aviv
AU  - Hatzitaskos,Konstantinos
TI  - Why Does the Average Price of Tuna Fall During Lent?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11572
PY  - 2005
Y2  - August 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11572
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11572.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Aviv Nevo
Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2001 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208-2600
Tel: 847/491-8212
Fax: 847/491-7001
E-Mail: nevo@northwestern.edu

Konstantinos Hatzitaskos
E-Mail: kostis@econ.berkeley.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2005-08-22
AB  - For many products the average price paid by consumers falls during periods of high demand. We use information from a large supermarket chain to decompose the decrease in the average price into a substitution effect, due to an increase in the share of cheaper products, and a price reduction effect. We find that for almost all the products we study the substitution effect explains a large part of the decrease. We estimate demand for these products and show the price declines are consistent with a change in demand elasticity and the relative demand for different brands. Our findings are less consistent with "loss-leader" models of retail competition.
ER  -