Welchen Zusammenhang zwischen Preis und Qualität sollte der Wettbewerb auf Konsumgütermärkten herstellen? / Which Price-Quality Relationship Should Competition Induce on Consumer Goods Markets ?
-
Heiner Imkamp
Summary
Not only that consumers take it often for granted that product prices are good indicators of product quality, but also many experts in consumer economics expect a high positive price-quality relationship. However, for more than 50 years numerous studies in more than 10 countries all over the world have shown low price-quality correlation coefficients, mostly close to 0.2. These results have been interpreted twofold: (a) consumers cannot use prices as valid indicators of quality and (b) markets do not function well. In contrast to the second interpretation, this paper argues that, according to the economic theory of price formation, prices are not an indicator of quality, but an indicator of scarcity. This allows the conclusion that workable consumer goods markets, as seen from a welfare point of view, should be characterized by low or even negative correlations between price and objective quality rather than by strong positive coefficients. All the more it is the availability of valid information about product quality which is necessary to enable consumers to avoid inefficient product choices.
© 2009 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Inhalt / Contents
- Abhandlungen / Original Papers
- Engines Powered by Renewable Energy, the Network of Filling Stations and Compatibility Decisions
- How Can Scholarship Institutions Foster the Return of Foreign Students?
- Welchen Zusammenhang zwischen Preis und Qualität sollte der Wettbewerb auf Konsumgütermärkten herstellen? / Which Price-Quality Relationship Should Competition Induce on Consumer Goods Markets ?
- Rentenreform und Rentenzugangsentscheidung – Eine numerische Gleichgewichtsanalyse / Pension Reform and Endogenous Retirement – a Computable General Equilibrium Analysis
- Struktur und Ausmaß der intergenerationalen Einkommensmobilität in Deutschland / Structure and Extent of Intergenerational Income Mobility in Germany
- What Determines Household Saving Behavior
- Forecasting Behavioural and Distributional Effects of the Bofinger-Walwei Model using Microsimulation
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Inhalt / Contents
- Abhandlungen / Original Papers
- Engines Powered by Renewable Energy, the Network of Filling Stations and Compatibility Decisions
- How Can Scholarship Institutions Foster the Return of Foreign Students?
- Welchen Zusammenhang zwischen Preis und Qualität sollte der Wettbewerb auf Konsumgütermärkten herstellen? / Which Price-Quality Relationship Should Competition Induce on Consumer Goods Markets ?
- Rentenreform und Rentenzugangsentscheidung – Eine numerische Gleichgewichtsanalyse / Pension Reform and Endogenous Retirement – a Computable General Equilibrium Analysis
- Struktur und Ausmaß der intergenerationalen Einkommensmobilität in Deutschland / Structure and Extent of Intergenerational Income Mobility in Germany
- What Determines Household Saving Behavior
- Forecasting Behavioural and Distributional Effects of the Bofinger-Walwei Model using Microsimulation
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
