Spacial Differences in Price Levels between French Regions and Cities with Scanner Data

This study is based on scanner data from large retailers sent daily to Insee in 2013. Its aim is to calculate indices that measure differences in consumer price levels between different areas of metropolitan France, focusing specifically on food products sold in supermarkets. A hedonic index based on the regression of the product price on barcode and territory dummies is developed. Several assessments are carried out over different weeks, with one week of data already providing a great degree of accuracy. The dispersion of price levels between regions or large conurbations is limited and, for the most part, robust to the choice of week. The highest prices are found in the Paris region and Corsica, with a magnitude of differences in the order of a few percentage points. A comparison of the new findings with research conducted by Insee between 1970 and 2000 shows that differences in food prices across different areas of metropolitan France are essentially structural and change little over time.