Tools
Tools
Bokhari, Farasat A. S. 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5418-8078, Dobson, Paul W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7352-740X, Morciano, Marcello and Suhrcke, Marc
(2023)
Banning volume discounts to curb excessive consumption: A cautionary tale.
European Economic Review, 156.
ISSN 0014-2921
Preview |
PDF (Bokhari_etal_2023_EER)
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Volume discounts encourage consumers to buy more. Banning such discounts should then lead to consumers buying less. This is the thinking behind banning multiple-unit discounts, including multibuy price promotions, to curb excessive harmful consumption of alcohol and high-fat, -sugar, and -salt (HFSS) foods. However, our analysis questions the validity of this thinking, which ignores the possible restraining effect of volume discounts. We find that such a ban for retailing alcohol in Scotland increased rather than reduced sales. Retailers switched to using more straight (single-unit) discounts, which encouraged high-consumption households to increase their shopping frequency and buy more.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Funding Information: MS is a former member of the Policy Research Unit in Behaviour and Health at the University of Cambridge which was funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme (PR-UN-0409-10109). Acknowledgements: The authors are very grateful to the director of the Policy Research Unit in Behaviour and Health at the University of Cambridge, Professor Theresa Marteau, for allowing us to use the data and to the authors of Nakamura et al. (2014) for making the data available to us. Neither the funders nor the data providers bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | alcohol,excessive consumption,multibuy,volume discounts,finance,economics and econometrics ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2000/2003 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Industrial Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Responsible Business Regulation Group |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 16 May 2023 08:31 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Apr 2024 00:06 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/92062 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2023.104480 |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |