Abstract
Price dispersion is an observed variation of price of the same (or similar) product among different vendors. This paper provides a possible explanation of the observed shape of the dispersion, proven by simulations of an agent based client-vendor environment. Proposed models for client and vendor representation are included. It turns out that the observed shape is achieved when some key environmental elements are taken into account; i.e. communication between clients, a limited memory of a client and the cost of crossing the distance between agents. As a benefit of the proposed model, it allows for speculation on how the future commerce may look like - in an Internet world where distances matter little.
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Zachara, M., Piskor-Ignatowicz, C. (2011). Agent Based Simulation of Customers Behavior for the Purpose of Price Distribution Estimation. In: Jędrzejowicz, P., Nguyen, N.T., Hoang, K. (eds) Computational Collective Intelligence. Technologies and Applications. ICCCI 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6923. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23938-0_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23938-0_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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