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International price differences in ski lift tickets

Summary

This paper provides empirical evidence on international price differences in ski lift tickets based on 214 ski areas in Austria, France, and Switzerland for the winter season 2010/2011. We find that French and Austrian one-day lift tickets (net of VAT) are an average of 17 and 7 per cent lower, respectively, than Swiss ticket prices after controlling for ski areas’ characteristics. The results of quantile regressions show that the magnitude of the international price differences is quite similar for low- and high-priced ski areas. Furthermore, price differences across countries do not increase with distance to the nearest border ski area.

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Correspondence to Martin Falk.

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I would like to thank two anonymous referees for valuable comments on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank Massimo Filippini, Rico Maggi, Wilfried Puhwein, and Laurent Vanat for their helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the participants of the EARIE 2007 conference in Valencia, the German Economic Association 2007 in Munich, and the 2008 Meeting of the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics in Lausanne for their helpful comments.

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Falk, M. International price differences in ski lift tickets. Swiss J Economics Statistics 147, 303–336 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03399348

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