Instrument-Free Demand Estimation Using Relative Prices Variation, with an Application to Railway Transportation

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: D'Haultfœuille, Xavier, Wang, Ao, Février, Philippe, Wilner, Lionel
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2022
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author D'Haultfœuille, Xavier
Wang, Ao
Février, Philippe
Wilner, Lionel
author_facet D'Haultfœuille, Xavier
Wang, Ao
Février, Philippe
Wilner, Lionel
contents We develop a new identification strategy for demand estimation when cost shifters may not be available and there are substantial variations in demand over time. This approaches relies on a kind of nonlinear difference-in-differences, in which price elasticities are identified by relating changes over time in relative purchases between two goods to changes in their relative prices. We apply this strategy to the context of French railway transportation and estimate price elasticities in line with those obtained on airlines, but more negative than those generally obtained on railway transportation. We then use our demand estimation to compare the current pricing with several counterfactual pricing strategies. Our results suggest similar or better performance of the actual revenue management compared to optimal uniform pricing, but also substantial losses compared to the optimal pricing strategy. Finally, we highlight the key role of revenue management in acquiring information when demand is uncertain.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2206_04424
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Instrument-Free Demand Estimation Using Relative Prices Variation, with an Application to Railway Transportation
D'Haultfœuille, Xavier
Wang, Ao
Février, Philippe
Wilner, Lionel
General Economics
Economics
We develop a new identification strategy for demand estimation when cost shifters may not be available and there are substantial variations in demand over time. This approaches relies on a kind of nonlinear difference-in-differences, in which price elasticities are identified by relating changes over time in relative purchases between two goods to changes in their relative prices. We apply this strategy to the context of French railway transportation and estimate price elasticities in line with those obtained on airlines, but more negative than those generally obtained on railway transportation. We then use our demand estimation to compare the current pricing with several counterfactual pricing strategies. Our results suggest similar or better performance of the actual revenue management compared to optimal uniform pricing, but also substantial losses compared to the optimal pricing strategy. Finally, we highlight the key role of revenue management in acquiring information when demand is uncertain.
title Instrument-Free Demand Estimation Using Relative Prices Variation, with an Application to Railway Transportation
topic General Economics
Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.04424