A Cross-National Investigation of the Relationship Between the Price and Quality of Consumer Products

This paper investigates the price-quality relationship for consumer electronics, housewares, major appliances, and photography equipment in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A very large range in the correlation coefficients at the product-line level was found; however, the mean value of the correlation coefficients over the entire product sample ranged between 0.18 and 0.35. The results are very similar to the results reported in price-quality studies conducted during the past four decades in the United States. The lack of a strong price-quality relationship for consumer products appears to be an international phenomenon.