Data and code for: Retail Prices in a City

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Alon Eizenberg, The Hebrew University; Saul Lach, The Hebrew University; Merav Oren-Yiftach, Central Bureau of Statistics

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Replication materials for upload			08/24/2020 04:15:AM

Project Citation:

Eizenberg, Alon, Lach, Saul, and Oren-Yiftach, Merav. Data and code for: Retail Prices in a City. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2021. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-04-07. https://doi.org/10.3886/E120073V1

Project Description

Summary: This study examines grocery price differentials across neighborhoods in a large metropolitan area (the city of Jerusalem, Israel). Important variation in access to affordable grocery shopping is documented using CPI data on prices, and neighborhood-level credit card expenditure data. Residents of peripheral, non-affluent neighborhoods are charged some of the highest prices in the city, and yet display a low tendency to shop outside their neighborhood. In contrast, residents of affluent, centrally-located neighborhoods often benefit from lower grocery prices charged in their own neighborhood, while also displaying a high propensity to shop at the hard-discount grocers located in the city's commercial districts. The role of spatial frictions in shaping these patterns is studied within a structural model where households determine their shopping destination and retailers choose prices. The estimated model implies strong spatial segmentation in households' demand. Counterfactual analyses reveal that alleviating spatial frictions results in considerable benefits to the average resident of the peripheral neighborhoods. At the same time, it barely affects the equilibrium prices charged across the city, and so it does little to benefit households with limited mobility (e.g., the elderly).

Funding Sources: Israel Science Foundation (858/11); Maurice Falk Institute for Economic Research in Israel

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: grocery price differentials; spatial frictions; demand estimation

JEL Classification:
      L10 Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance: General
      L11 Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
      L13 Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

Geographic Coverage: Jerusalem, Israel

Time Period(s): 9/1/2007 – 11/30/2008 (September 2007, November 2007, November 2008)

Collection Date(s): 9/1/2007 – 11/30/2008 (September 2007, November 2007, November 2008)

Universe:

sample of grocery stores and supermarkets in Jerusalem, Israel in 2007 and 2008.

Data Type(s): administrative records data; census/enumeration data

Methodology

Response Rate: Not relevant

Sampling: Prices sampled following CPI methodology

Data Source: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
Credit card company

Collection Mode(s): coded on-site observation; other

Scales: No scaling

Weights: No weights

Unit(s) of Observation: neighborhoods, stores

Geographic Unit: neighborhood

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Published Versions

V1 [2021-04-07]

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