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[论文下载]耐用品销售随经济周期变化分析
WEATHERING TIGHT ECONOMIC TIMES: THE SALES EVOLUTION OF CONSUMER DURABLES OVER THE BUSINESS CYCLE
原文来自于www.ssrn.com的Working paper.
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论文摘要：
Abstract
Despite its obvious importance, not much marketing research focuses on how business cycle fluctuations affect individual companies and/or industries. Often, one only has aggregate information on the state of the national economy, even though cyclical contractions and expansions need not have an equal impact on every industry, nor on all firms in that industry. Using recent time-series developments, we introduce various measures to quantify the extent and nature of business-cycle fluctuations in sales. Specifically, we discuss the notions of cyclical volatility and cyclical comovement, and consider two types of cyclical asymmetry related, respectively, to the relative size of the peaks and troughs and the rate of change in upward versus downward parts of the cycle. In so doing, we examine how consumers adjust their purchasing behavior across different phases of the business cycle. We apply these concepts to a broad set (24) of consumer durables, for which we analyze the cyclical sensitivity in their sales evolution. In that way, we (i) derive a novel set of empirical generalizations, and (ii) test different marketing theory-based hypotheses on the underlying drivers of cyclical sensitivity.
Consumer durables are found to be more sensitive to business-cycle fluctuations than the general economic activity, as expressed in an average cyclical volatility of more than four times the one in GNP, and an average comovement elasticity in excess of 2. This observation calls for an explicit consideration of cyclical variation in durable sales. Moreover, even though no evidence is found for depth asymmetry, the combined evidence across all durables suggests that asymmetry is present in the speed of up- and downward movements, as durable sales fall much quicker during contractions than they recover during economic expansions.
We further analyzed various reasons that may underlie this substantial vulnerability of durables to business-cycle fluctuations. First, we found that consumers tend to postpone their purchases, as evidenced by the presence of asymmetric steepness in durable sales. Second, companies pricing practices were found to amplify the cyclical sensitivity in durable sales, as companies tend to increase prices during an economic contraction, while decreasing them during an expansion. Indeed, business-cycle fluctuations in sales patterns were more pronounced in those industries where such price reactions were larger. In addition, we found evidence for a higher cyclical sensitivity in industries characterized by sticky (inert) pricing practices. Hence, durable industries that are less used to adjust their prices tend to be hit harder by economic downturns. As such, companies have two immediate strategies at hand to reduce their cyclical sensitivity; i.e. to quickly adjust prices in a cyclical (rather than the usual/observed countercyclical) way. Third, the nature of the durable turned out to be important as well. We found leisure goods to be more sensitive to business-cycle fluctuations than convenience goods. Managers should also be aware that intrinsic cyclical fluctuations are likely to become less pronounced in later stages of the products life, i.e. as replacement purchases become a more substantial fraction of total sales. This observation underscores the importance of having a diversified offering with products in different stages of their life cycle (Harrigan and Porter, 1983).
Keywords: Business cycles; Sales evolution; Consumer durables; Time-series econometrics.
简要翻译如下：
很少有人去分析经济周期波动如何对单个公司或某个行业产生影响，尽管所有人都认为这种分析很重要。我们只能获得经济周期对整个经济体影响的宏观数据。但实际上周期性的收缩和扩张对不同行业、不同企业所产生的影响是不同的，甚至周期的不同阶段(如处于上升起或下降期)人们的反应也是不同的.
本文使用时间序列分析的方法, 引入几种方法来测量经济周期对销售影响的程度和特征. 特别地,我们讨论了周期的易变性(cyclical volatility), 以及周期的共移性(cyclical comovement) 这两个概念, 以及两种类型的经济周期非对称性: 一种是经济周期波峰和波谷大小的非对称性, 另外一种是经济周期上升速率和下降速率的非对称性. 这样, 我们就可以分析消费者在经济周期的不同阶段如何调整他们的消费行为.
我们挑选出了一组耐用消费品(24种), 来分析它们的销售对经济周期的敏感性.
耐用消费品对经济周期的敏感性是一般经济活动的4倍左右. 经济周期对耐用消费品销量大小在幅度方面的影响是对称的, 即波峰和波谷大小是对称的, 但上升和下降速率却是非对称的, 经济衰退期耐用消费品销售数量会快速下降, 而后在经济上升期经历一个非常缓慢的上升过程.
我们接着分析了耐用消费品对经济周期敏感的原因: 首先, 在衰退期, 消费者倾向于推迟购买耐用消费品, 这一点从衰退期陡峭下降的曲线就能看出来; 另外, 市场定价的做法也加剧了这种敏感性, 生产厂家通常在经济上升期降低价格, 而在经济衰退期提高价格. 因此, 不主动降价配合衰退期的企业会被经济衰退打击得更惨. 因此, 企业有个简单的方法来应对衰退期: 迅速调整价格(反应要快), 因为进入衰退期都是一个陡峭的曲线, 突然进入的. 第三, 奢侈品更容易受到经济衰退的影响. 此外, 处于产品生命周期后期的产品不容易受到衰退的影响, 企业应该在衰退期提供多种产品, 这些产品处于其生命周期的不同阶段, 这种多产品生命周期的产品组合能帮助减轻衰退期对企业的影响.
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