Bargaining at Retail Stores: Evidence from Vienna

In the West, where posted prices are the norm, it is uncommon to observe consumers receive discounts below the posted price. Nevertheless, we find that when stores are asked, a discount is granted approximately 40% of the time, with a median discount percentage of 10%. Discounts are more likely to be offered by small-scale firms, for higher-priced products, and for nonsale items. More generally, differences in price delegation behavior across firm types serve as an indicator that monitoring costs and employee skills are important drivers of bargaining behavior. This paper was accepted by Duncan Simester, marketing

EMBEDDED AND AUTONOMOUS MARKETS IN NORTH KOREA'S FISHING INDUSTRY: RESOURCE SCARCITY, MONITORING COSTS, AND EVOLVING INSTITUTIONS

North Korea today is a most unusual post-socialist state. Market actors and market prices are integral to economic life, but private property remains illegal, and private enterprise outside the household is de jure non-existent. In such an institutional context, some market processes are more autonomous in relation to the state, while others are more embedded within state structures. In this article, we offer a theoretical account of the shape that North Korea's market economy has taken, developed from a set of fishing industry case studies. We note four broad categories of enterprises: closely embedded, loosely embedded, semi-autonomous, and autonomous. By relative autonomy/embeddedness we mean control over fixed assets, cash flow, and operational decisions such as wage and price setting. We postulate three major determinants of embeddedness/autonomy: (1) relative strategic resource scarcity between state and market actors, (2) monitoring costs, and (3) institutional evolution that reflects these realities, though to varying extents.

Allocation Of Residual Income Rights Under Internal Governance Empirical Results from the Hungarian Trucking Industry

The paper offers a property rights and monitoring cost explanation for the allocation of residual income rights between the carriers and truck drivers under internal governance. First, by applying property rights theory, we argue that the structure of residual income rights depends on the importance of noncontractible (intangible) assets of the truck driver to generate a residual surplus. The more important the truck driver’s intangible knowledgeassets, the more residual income rights should be transferred to him. In addition, we controlled for the monitoring costs as an additional explanatory variable of the allocation of residual income rights. According to agency theory, the higher the variable proportion of the driver’s income, the higher the monitoring costs.These hypotheses were tested by using data from the Hungarian trucking industry. The empirical results are supportive of the hypotheses. JEL- Index: G32, M2

Transaction Costs and Farm-to-Market Linkages in China: Empirical Evidence from Apple Producers

Using field surgveyed data from two apple production belts in China, this study estimates the impact of transaction costs on smallholders’ market participation and integration. The analysis is based on an innovative measurement of the transaction costs and a disaggregated analysis of sales, information, negotiation, and monitoring costs. The results reveal that farmers’ market participation levels are mainly determined by the proportional transaction costs and price, while their market integration depends on the fixed transaction costs and price. This suggests that, to lower the transaction costs and enable specialization and market participation, it is necessary to invest in and construct adequate farming infrastructure, update the rural information system, improve the structure of farmer households, and subsidize specialized rural cooperative organizations.

Усовершенствованная конструкция оголовка самоизливающейся скважины

Предложена усовершенствованная конструкция оголовка самоизливающейся водозаборной скважины. Оголовок относится к области технических средств, используемых для проведения автоматизированного мониторинга месторождений подземных питьевых вод с помощью погружных автономных датчиков-регистраторов. Оголовок используется на скважинах, расположенных на неохраняемых территориях. Показано, что установка данного оголовка на самоизливающихся скважинах позволяет автоматизировать мониторинг подземных питьевых вод на неохраняемых территориях при различных климатических условиях. При этом повышается точность результатов мониторинга, снижаются затраты на его проведение. Усовершенствованная конструкция оголовка имеет повышенную прочность.An improved design of the head of a blowing water well is proposed. The head falls within the domain of technological tools used for automated monitoring of underground drinking water deposits with the help of submerged stand-off recording sensors. The head is used in wells located in unguarded areas. It is demonstrated that the heads installed on blowing wells provide for automated monitoring of underground drinking water in unguarded areas under various climatic conditions. Herewith, the results of the monitoring improve, whereas the monitoring costs decrease. The improved design of the head is characterized by high-strength.