Price Transparency

The dissertation consists of three empirical studies and takes a closer look at price fluctuations using German gasoline prices as an example for a homogenous good. It analyzes consumers’ reaction to price fluctuations and respectively the pricing behavior of firms. The first paper, which was developed with co-authorship, explores consumers’ online price search effects on the pricing behavior of firms (gasoline price level and price dispersion). As regulators have recently implemented a mechanism for reporting all price changes to a central data base, the core assumption of this price reporting scheme is that the increase in price transparency will lead to a decline in the price level and a reduction in price dispersion. The second study addresses the question whether German gas stations adjust their retail prices asymmetrically in response to crude oil price changes, i.e., whether gas stations react quicker to crude oil price increases than to crude oil price decreases. The third study aims to analyze whether consumers react more strongly to gasoline price increases or to price decreases when considering buying a new vehicle.

This ambitious book develops an integrative understanding of business transparency spanning business disciplines. It synthesizes the vast, siloed research on business transparency to develop and provide an integrative view for business researchers and scholars, pointing out research opportunities in the process. The first chapter introduces business transparency with a brief historical overview, followed by its key conceptualizations and challenges. Chapters 2 through 5 take up four conceptually distinct views of transparency in depth: transparency as strategic disclosure (Chapter 2), transparency as a business tactic (Chapter 3), transparency as organizational culture (Chapter 4) and transparency as a managerial virtue (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 explores transparency’s infeasibility challenge through the chasm between disclosure and understanding and considers its implications. The final chapter provides an integrative framework of business transparency. This book will be useful to business academics who are interested in transparency and associated concepts.

This book explores various approaches around the world regarding price term control, and particularly discusses the effectiveness of two major paths: ex ante regulatory and ex post judicial intervention. Price control and its limits are issues that affect all liberal market economies, as well as more regulated markets. For the past several years, courts in many different countries have been confronted with the issue of whether, and to what extent, they should intervene regarding price-related terms in standard form contracts – especially in the area of consumer contracts. Open price clauses, flat remunerations, price adjustment clauses, clauses giving the seller/supplier the right to ask for additional payments, bundling or partitioning practices, etc.: a variety of price related terms are used to manipulate customers’ choices, often also by exploiting their behavioral biases. The result is an unfavorable contract that is later challenged in court. However, invalidating a given price term in standard forms e.g. of a banking or utilities contract only has an inter partes effect, which means that in thousands if not millions of similar contracts, the same clauses continue to be used. Effective procedural rules are often lacking. Therefore, pricing patterns that serve to hide rather than to reveal the real cost of goods and services require special attention on the part of regulators. The aim of this book is to determine the various approaches in the world regarding price term control, and particularly to discuss the efficiency of both paths, ex ante regulatory and ex post judicial intervention. Thanks to its broad comparative analysis, this book offers a thorough overview of the methods employed in several countries. It gathers twenty-eight contributions from national rapporteurs and one supra-national rapporteur (EU) to the 2018 IACL Congress held in Fukuoka. These are supplemented by a general report presented at the same IACL Congress, which includes a comparative analysis of the national and supranational reports. The national contributors hail from around the globe, including Africa (1), Asia (5), Europe (17), the European Union (1) and the Americas (5).

Examines the impact of increased transparency on the legal, medical, and business structures of the American health care system.