Thursday, 3 July 2014

The Straits Times

In today’s edition of The Straits Times, there was an article contribution by Associate Professor Davin Chor from the Department of Economics at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and Mr Gilbert Neo, who is a graduating Honours student from the Department. They discussed the reasons behind why the same product is often priced differently in different countries, and shared about the findings of a research undertaken by Mr Neo on the price differences of 438 items sold by Swedish furniture company Ikea in eight Asia-Pacific economies. They noted that existing pricing studies have been limited to a small number of countries and a handful of consumer industries, and highlighted that they would ideally like to have direct information on the costs faced in each country, in order to get a more precise picture of how such supply-side pressures feed into local prices.

The article is part of a monthly series “Ask: NUS Economists” by the NUS Department of Economics. Each month, a panel will address a topical issue.

Click here for the article.