The existence of irreversible demand is tested, whereby price increases induce a different absolute magnitude of quantity change than price decreases. Irreversibility is potentially likely in retail food settings for storable products that are consumed regularly and can affect pricing strategy performance. If irreversibility exists, the subsequent research question for storable product demand is whether loss aversion effects dominate stockpiling effects, or vice versa. A two-period theoretical model is developed, which predicts more elastic responses to downward price movements via stockpiling, but empirical tests on secondary data are needed to evaluate offsetting loss aversion effects. A variant of the Rotterdam demand model is developed to allow differential response to price increases and decreases. The model is applied to scanner data of short periodicity (weekly in this case), which are necessary to measure meaningful demand responses to food price changes. The products selected are U.S. cheeses and table spreads that are storable over multiple weeks. The results suggest that stockpiling dominates loss aversion. One potential cause of this behavior may be that marketers asymmetrically provide consumers with more reference price information when lowering prices, but not when raising prices. When stockpiling effects dominate, given the typically price-elastic store-level demand for food products, high-low pricing strategies should produce higher revenue. Regarding measurement of average demand response, reversible demand models applied to weekly data may overestimate own-price elasticities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.