Solved – Understanding the price elasticity interaction in a regression model

econometricselasticityinteractioninterpretationregression

The question that follows is derived from a SAS User's Group paper available on the web (Price and Cross Price Elasticity Estimation Using SAS). The objective is to calculate price elasticities (own and cross). There are two products (our product and a substitute and two promotional events from us). An OLS is run from data for 26 weeks and is formulated as follows:

Log_Demand_A = constant + b1*log_Price_A + b2*log_Price_B + b3*Promo_1 + b4*Promo_2 + 
               b5*log_Price_A*Promo_1 + b6*log_Price_A*Promo_2

The parameters of the model are as follows

log_Price_A         --> b1 =  -4.3  p-value=0.0017
Log_Price_B         --> b2 =   0.0486  p-value=0.9651
Promo_1             --> b3 =  36.88 p-value=0.0977
Promo_2             --> b4 =   4.5 p-value=0.3349
log_Price_A*Promo_1 --> b5 = -19.7 p-value=0.0975
log_Price_A*Promo_1 --> b6 =  -2.3 p-value=0.3358

I want to find the elasticity of Price_A with Promo_1. The paper says that it is b1+b5 = -4.3+-19.7 = -24. Why is that? Since we have multiplied log_Price_A with Promo_1 shouldn't the elasticity of the two be -19.7? Why do we add the two parameters?

Best Answer

I guess Promo_1 and Promo_2 are categorical variables, in this case binary, representing the presence of the promotion.

The elasticity of interest here is the price elasticity of demand, in the presence of Promo_1. So you need to compute:

$$ dD/dPA * PA/Q = dlogD/dlogPA $$ for Promo_1 = 1. Here you have a log-log specification, so the parameters are elasticities. Differentiate the model equation with respect to logPA, you obtain b1 + b5*Promo_1.

Hence, in the presence of the promotion, i.e. Promo_1 = 1, the estimated elasticity is b1+b5.


Edit: For the record, estimating demand function has a long history in econometrics because of the potential endogeneity issues. You should probably look up for 2SLS and structural models.