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Background Evidence on what strategies - or combination of strategies - are most effective and equitable in promoting healthier diets is needed. This study examined the efficacy of nudging and pricing strategies on increasing healthy food purchases and the potential differential effect by socio-economic position (SEP) among Dutch adults in a virtual supermarket. Methods A randomized study design was conducted within a virtual supermarket (SN VirtuMart). Participants were exposed to five within-subject study conditions (control, nudging, pricing, price salience and price salience with nudging) and randomized to one of three between-subject study arms (a 25% price increase on unhealthy products, a 25% discount on healthy products, or a 25% price increase and discount). In total, 455 participants of low and high SEP (using either education or income as proxy) were randomized to conduct their weekly shopping in a virtual supermarket for five consecutive weeks. The primary outcome included the percentage of healthy purchases. Data were analyzed using linear mixed models. Results In total, 346 (76%) adults completed all five shops within the SN VirtuMart. Median age was 32.5, 49.2% had high education and 32.8% had high income. Out of the 12 conditions, four conditions were statistically significantly different from the control condition. Nudging and non-salient pricing strategies alone did not statistically significantly increase healthy food purchases, whereas a combination of salient price increases and discounts led to an increase in the percentage of healthy food purchases (B 4.5, 95%CI 2.6; 6.4). Combining salient pricing and nudging strategies led to increases in the percentage of healthy products in all three pricing arms, with largest effects found in the combined price increase and discount arm (B = 4.0, 95%CI = 2.0; 6.0). Effects were not modified by SEP. Conclusions Combining health-related price increases and discounts and combining these salient pricing strategies with nudges in a supermarket setting seems to stimulate healthy food purchases for both low and high SEP populations. However, further research in real-world settings is needed. Trial registration This randomized trial ( NTR7293 ) was registered in the Dutch trial registry ( www.trialregister.nl ).

Morocco adopted a new medicines pricing policy in 2013 that introduced price revisions following the implementation of Decree No. 2-13-852. This study aims to describe the evolution in medicine price decreases in Moroccan pharmacies following the price revisions published by the Ministry of Health. as part of a retrospective descriptive study, all the price revision lists over five years (2014-2019) were crossed with the databases of sales of medicines sold in pharmacies. price decrease affected 1704 medicines, 54% of which were originator drugs. All therapeutic classes were involved, 22.7% were anti-infective, and 18.5% were for the cardiovascular system. Medicines with a public selling price between 5 and 10 US dollars (25.4%) were the most affected by the drop, even if it has concerned all price ranges. 22.8% of medicines decreased by less than or equal to 0.1 US dollar, and 28.7% recorded decreases of less than or equal to 1% of the public selling price. Five medicines (0.3%) have been reduced by over 70%, with 73.2% as a maximum drop percentage. following the implementation of Decree no. 2-13-852, a series of medicine price revisions was adopted. All price ranges and therapeutic classes were affected by the price decrease, with several variations. However, complementary policies are still needed to improve access to medicines.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how consumers respond to price changes by analyzing online product reviews (OPRs) posted on a product (Amazon’s Kindle 2), and to suggest several future research topics on online consumers’ reactions embedded in OPRs. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory case study is conducted using OPRs added to the Kindle 2. By analyzing 6,714 OPRs, the authors examine how online consumers respond to two continual price decreases embedded in the observable (star rating and review depth) and implicit (positive and negative emotions) features of OPRs as well as how the number of OPRs per day has changed after two price drops. Findings – The authors found that all four features of OPRs (star rating, review depth, positive emotion, and negative emotion) and the number of OPRs per day had significantly changed after two price decreases for both long-term and short-term periods. In addition, online consumers’ reactions to price decreases in terms of these four features and the change in the number of OPRs per day were different between the first and the second price drops. Research limitations/implications – This study investigates online consumers’ reactions to price decreases only. Future research should investigate other cases where price changes under the dynamic pricing strategy in order to find the relationship between price increases/decreases and consumers’ reactions. Practical implications – This study implies that online merchants should consider consumer groups’ innovation adoption stages and make strategic decisions for price decreases to improve the sales of their products. Originality/value – While prior research involving the effects of price changes on consumers’ reactions has focussed on offline consumers, this is among the first attempts to address the long- and short-term reactions to price changes in terms of both the observable and implicit features of OPRs, and suggests that consumers’ reactions to price changes in OPRs are more complex.

A price reveal auction (PRA) is a descending price auction in which the current price of the item on sale is hidden. Buyers can privately observe the price only by paying a fee, and every time an agent does so, the price falls by a predetermined amount. We show that if the number of participants, , is common knowledge, then in equilibrium a PRA replicates the outcome of a posted price mechanism. In particular, at most one buyer observes the price and the auction immediately finishes. In contrast, multiple entries can occur and profitability is enhanced when agents are uncertain about . Under some conditions, a PRA may even yield higher expected revenues than standard auction formats.

This report assesses the potential of electricity contract auctions as a procurement option for the World Bank's client countries. It focuses on the role of auctions of electricity contracts designed to expand and retain existing generation capacity. It is not meant to be a 'how-to' manual. Rather, it highlights some major issues and options that need to be taken into account when a country considers moving towards competitive electricity procurement through the introduction of electricity auctions. Auctions have played an important role in the effort to match supply and demand. Ever since the 1990s, the use of long-term contract auctions to procure new generation capacity, notably from private sector suppliers, has garnered increased affection from investors, governments, and multilateral agencies in general, as a means to achieve a competitive and transparent procurement process while providing certainty of supply for the medium to long term. However, the liberalization of electricity markets and the move from single-buyer procurement models increased the nature of the challenge facing system planners in their efforts to ensure an adequate and secure supply of electricity in the future at the best price. While auctions as general propositions are a means to match supply with demand in a cost-effective manner, they can also be and have been used to meet a variety of goals.

The objective of the study is to examine, identify, and quantify the factors behind Africa's high prices for road transport. Such prices are a major obstacle to economic growth in the region, as shown in several studies. For example, Amjadi and Yeats (1995) concluded that transport costs in Africa were a higher trade barrier than were import tariffs and trade restrictions. Other analyses by the World Bank (2007a) demonstrated that Africa's transport prices were high compared to the value of the goods transported and that transport predictability and reliability were low by international standards. This study's findings should help policy makers take actions that will reduce transport costs to domestic and international trade.

The logistics industry in Indonesia, with PT Pos Indonesia as the dominant player, is confronted with intense price competition. The challenge lies in establishing the most favorable price for regional logistics services in every region, with the aim of gaining a competitive edge and augmenting revenue. This intricate task encompasses local market conditions, competition, customer preferences, operational costs, and economic factors. To address this complexity, this study proposes the utilization of machine learning for price prediction. The price prediction model devised incorporates the extreme gradient boosting regression (XGBR), support vector machine (SVM), random forest, and logistics regression algorithms. This research contributes to the field by employing mean decrease in impurity (MDI) and permutation importance (PI) to elucidate how machine learning models facilitate optimal price predictions. The findings of this study can assist company management in enhancing their comprehension of how to make informed pricing decisions. The test results demonstrate values of 0.001, 0.005, 0.458, 0.009, and 0.9998. By employing machine learning techniques and explanatory models, PT Pos Indonesia can more accurately determine optimal prices in each region, bolster profits, and effectively compete in the expanding regional market.

Owning a house is important for most young people in urban China, especially for migrants. For migrants who want to settle in their working city, high housing prices may have a negative effect on their subjective well-being. Using nationally representative migrant survey data, this study examines the relationship between housing prices and migrants’ subjective well-being in China. The results indicate that housing prices play a significantly negative role in migrants’ subjective well-being, especially for low-educated, female, and rural-to-urban migrants. These results are robust to instrumental variable analysis. In addition to the direct mental effect, there is evidence of two possible ways in which housing prices may affect migrants’ subjective well-being. First, high housing prices increase the possibility of migrants living alone in the city, and a geographical family split decreases their subjective well-being. Second, to earn more to purchase a house in the working city in the future, they are more likely to work longer hours and decrease their leisure time, which may cause a decrease in their happiness.

Intercity travel congestion during the main national holidays takes place every year at different places around the world. Charge reduction measurements on existing toll roads have been implemented to promote an efficient use of the expressways and to reduce congestion on the public transit networks. However, some of these policies have had negative effects. A more comprehensive understanding of the determinants of holiday intercity travel patterns is critical for better policymaking. This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of the road toll discount policy on mode choice behavior for intercity travel. A mixed logit model is developed to model the mode choices of intercity travelers, which is estimated based on survey data about intercity journeys from Beijing during the 2017 Chinese Spring Festival holiday. The policy impact is further discussed by elasticity and scenario simulations. The results indicate that the expressway toll discount does increase the car use and decrease the public transit usage. Given the decreased toll on expressways, the demand tends to shift from car to public transit, in an order of coach, high-speed rail, conventional rail, and airplane. When it comes to its effect on socio-demographic groups, men and lower-income travelers are identified to be more likely to change mode in response to variation of road toll. Finally, policy effectiveness is found to vary for travelers in different travel distance groups. Conclusions provide useful insights on road pricing management.

Purpose - After a period of 20 years of successful growth in sales in the international wine business, the upcoming International Alcohol Policy is endangering the economic sustainability of the wine business. To reduce alcohol-caused hazards and harm, the International Alcohol Policy favours taxes and minimum prices for all alcoholic beverages. This policy is based on a large number of empirical studies on the price elasticity of alcoholic beverages. The purpose of this paper is to ask whether higher taxes on alcoholic beverages can solve the problems caused by excessive alcohol consumption or whether they are largely ineffective while producing other sustained damage at the same time.Design methodology approach - The paper evaluates the results of studies on the price elasticity of alcoholic beverages by using the available results of studies on consumer decision making, focusing in particular on the relevance of price elasticity in comparison to the relevance of individually available budgets and prefer ences. In that case the contrast between alcoholics (consumer segment causing alcoholism) and average consumers is analysed using knowledge of the great differences in preferences between consumer segments.Findings - Wine is highly affected by this alcohol policy due to the expectation of a decrease in overall consumption and the very high costs of alcohol content-related taxes paid by all wine consumers. The price elasticity of demand for wine is analysed to be much higher than for beer and wine consumers are far away from alcoholism.Social implications - The big social problem of alcoholism has to be underlined here. This problem and its spread internationally demands an examination of the effectiveness of this alcohol policy on prices and the development of and checks on new instruments for the direct control of alcoholics.Originality value - The international alcohol policy is an important field which needs to be analysed scientifically in more depth and in the framework of sustainability, with a focus on harmonizing social, economic and environmental aims. The paper shows that the current instruments used internationally in the alcohol policy cause large economic problems for wine consumers, as well as for wine producers and merchants, without solving the social problems of alcohol-related hazards and harm.