Do consumers’ perceptions of price fairness differ according to type of firm ownership?

We investigated Chinese consumers’ perception of price fairness by introducing the type of firm ownership (state-owned monopoly, and non-state-owned corporation) as an independent variable, to investigate whether or not people’s feeling of price fairness differs between state and non-state-owned firms. Results showed that our participants tended to accept price rise because of cost increase, but not price rise because of an increase of demand. Participants also regarded as unfair the price remaining high when cost decreased. Auction in the situation of shortage of goods, was also regarded as unfair. State-owned monopolies raising their prices was viewed by participants as being more unfair than a price rise by a non-state-owned corporation.