Abstract:A variety of models provide differing predictions regarding the effect of an increase in the number of competitors in a market (seller density) on prices and price dispersion. We review different approaches to generating equilibrium price dispersion and then empirically estimate the relationship between seller density, average product price, and price dispersion in the retail gasoline industry using four unique gasoline price data sets. Controlling for station-level characteristics, we find that an increase in station density consistently decreases both price levels and price dispersion across four geographical areas.
JEL Codes: L13, D43, D83
-We introduc e a simple allocation-of-tim e model to explain the high school athletic participatio n choice and the implication s of this choice for educationa l and labor market outcomes. Four differen t factors that could explain athletic participatio n are identi ed in the context of this model. A variety of tests of the model are provided using two data sets: the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. We nd some evidence that athletic participatio n directly affects wages and educationa l attainment. However, much of the effect of athletic participatio n on wages and educationa l attainment appears to re ect difference s across individual s in ability or value of leisure.Sports and other forms of vigorous physical activity provide educational experience which cannot be duplicated in the classroom. They are an uncompromising laboratory in which we must think and act quickly and efficiently under pressure and then force us to meet our own inadequacies face-to-face and to do something about them, as nothing else does. . . . Sports resemble life in capsule form and the participant quickly learns that his performance depends upon the development of strength, stamina, self-discipline and a sure and steady judgment.-Supreme Court Justice Byron White
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