GCOE Discussion Paper Series
Global COE Program

Human Behavior and Socioeconomic Dynamics
Discussion Paper No. 272

Nonlinear Pricing of Japanese Newspapers

David FlathAugust 2012GCOE Secretariat
Graduate School of Economics

OSAKA UNIVERSITY

1-7 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-0043, Japan

August 5, 2012

Nonlinear Pricing of Japanese Newspapers
David Flath*Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University

abstract
In Japan, the newspapers with the greatest daily circulation offer bothmorning and evening editions in most of their distribution areas. Their
prices per page of actual content are different for morning-and-evening
subscribers than for morning-only subscribers. So the subscription priceschedules could be described as sliding scales. These are tariff schedules
that are step functions, and thus nonlinear. My focus is on two aspects ofnonlinear pricing by Japanese newspapers. The first is that pricing andcirculation of the differing editions reveal parameters of the demand fornewspaper content. I estimate these parameters using nonlinear leastsquares and find that price elasticity of demand is around 1.2, while
elasticity of demand with respect to pages of content is around 0.5.
Estimates from micro-data have price elasticity around 1.3 and elasticity
with respect to pages of content around 0.4. The second aspect of nonlinear
pricing on which I focus is the distorting effect of demanders’ incentive
compatibility constraints on the newspaper publishers’ choice of newspaper
content. The newspaper publishers wastefully reduce the number of pagesof content of their morning editions to deter morning-and-evening
subscribers from cancelling their evening subscriptions. It is wasteful in thesense that the marginal value to subscribers of an additional page of content
in the morning edition is less than the marginal cost.
JEL codes: D4,L4
Keywords: nonlinear pricing, two-sided markets, newspapers, advertising*Institute of Social and Economic Research
Osaka University
6-1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki
Osaka 567-0047
JAPAN
Tel: 81-(0)6-6879-8569
E-mail: flath@iser.osaka-u.ac.jp
This research is supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for
Scientific Research (C), grant no. 22530227.

Nonlinear Pricing of Japanese Newspapers
1. Introduction
In Japan, the newspapers with the greatest daily circulation offer both morning andevening editions in most of their distribution areas.

The national dailies (Yomiuri, Asahi,

Mainichi, and Sankei) all do so and the bloc newspapers (Chunichi, Chogoku and Hokkaido)
do as well. Typically, these offer subscribers a choice between subscribing to the morning
edition only, or subscribing to both morning and evening edition.

In some locales awayfrom urban centers, the national newspapers are only offered as morning editions.

And anumber of regional newspapers with smaller circulation (To-o Nippo, Oita Godo, Iwate
Nippo, Yamagata Shimbun, Ryukyu Shimpo) offer both morning and evening editions
together, but with no option of subscribing to the morning edition only. Shizuoka Shimbun
purports to offer subscribers a choice between morning and evening editions or just evening
edition, but almost none opt for just the evening edition.
Consider the subscription pricing of the newspapers offered either as morning editionor morning plus evening edition.

The modal prices (set by Yomiuri, Asahi, and Mainichi)

since 2003 are 3,007 yen per month for the morning-only and 3,925 yen per month formorning-and-evening.

Though seldom remarked, this is an example of nonlinear pricing inthe sense that the price per page of actual content, that is price divided by printed pages
exclusive of advertising, is different for morning-and-evening subscribers than formorning-only subscribers.
scales.

So the subscription price schedules could be described as sliding

These are tariff schedules that are step functions, and thus nonlinear.

examples of such pricing abound.

Other

Transport fares offered in differing quality classes,

beverage prices that differ per unit depending on the size of container, prices of electricity
that vary depending on monthly number of kilowatts used, and so on, are obvious examples.
My focus is on two aspects of nonlinear pricing by Japanese newspapers.

The first isthat pricing and circulation of the differing editions reveal parameters of the demand fornewspaper content.

I estimate these parameters using nonlinear least squares and find thatprice elasticity of demand lies around 1.2, while elasticity of demand with respect to pages ofcontent is around 0.5.

Producing these estimates solves a difficult problem in that almost allof the newspapers set exactly the same prices as one another. With virtually no cross-section(or temporal) variation in prices it is still possible to infer price elasticity of demand based on2

an assumed relationship between individuals’ valuations of pages of content and theirvaluations of subscriptions.
The second aspect of nonlinear pricing on which I focus is the distorting effect ofdemanders’ incentive compatibility constraints on the newspaper publishers’ choice ofnewspaper content.

The newspaper publishers wastefully reduce the number of pages ofcontent of their morning editions to deter morning-and-evening subscribers from cancelling
their evening subscriptions. I estimate the value of this waste at around six yen per month permorning-only subscriber.

All of this requires a general framework for thinking aboutnewspaper pricing that takes into account that newspapers are platforms in two-sided markets.
They sell both subscriptions and advertising, and the demand for advertising depends on thenumber of subscribers.
This paper contributes to the empirical literature on second-degree price discrimination.
It also contributes to the econometric analysis of platforms in two-sided markets, newspapers
in particular.

Empirical studies of second-degree price discrimination, that is pricediscrimination relying on self-selection of demanders when presented with a nonlinear
pricing schedule, include Cohen (2001) for paper towels, Busse and Rysman (2005) for
yellow pages advertising, McManus (2007) for coffee drinks, and Shum and Crawford (2007)
for cable television subscriptions.

Econometric analysis of newspaper pricing include Van

Argentesi and Filistrucchi (2007) for Italy, Cayseele and Vanormelingen (2009) for Belgium,
and Fan (2011) for the United States.
A novel contribution here is an original partial-equilibrium model of the demand forsubscriptions to morning edition and morning-and-evening edition of a newspaper thatenables estimates of the effect of incentive-compatibility constraint on pages of content in themorning edition.

I find that the Japanese newspapers that offer a choice between

morning-only subscription and morning-and-evening subscription reduce the number ofpages of content in the morning edition by about six percent, to deter morning-and-evening
subscribers from switching to morning-only.

A further novel contribution is use of the samemodel as a new way of estimating elasticity of demand for newspapers with respect to
subscription price and pages of content, using very limited data.

2.

Basic Framework.
I begin by describing the pricing and content choices of a single-edition newspaper, forexample one that is offered in morning edition only.
3

Let us suppose that the demand for ads

“a” depends on the price to place an ad per subscriber “pa/s” and that the readers regard theads indifferently.

Here an ad is defined as a printed item supplied to all subscribers, thesame as the subscription content k. The only difference is that the ad is paid for by theadvertiser but the other content is paid for by the subscribers.

To keep matters simple, posit

a constant elasticity demand system facing the newspaper:𝑠 = 𝐴𝑝𝑠 −𝜉𝑠 𝑘 𝜃

[1]

𝑝

−𝜉𝑎

𝑎 = 𝐵 � 𝑠𝑎�

[2]where ξs >1, ξa >1, and 0<θ<1.
Let the cost of newspaper production depend on number of ads and circulation and on
amount of content. These costs include first-copy costs faa+fkk, and costs that depend on
number of copies 𝑐0 𝑠 + 𝑐̅𝑎𝑠 + 𝑐̅𝑘𝑠:

𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪 = 𝑓𝑎 𝑎 + 𝑓𝑘 𝑘 + 𝑐0 𝑠 + 𝑐̅𝑎𝑠 + 𝑐̅𝑘𝑠

[3]Here, c0 is the unit cost of distribution net of advertisers’ payments to distributors forincluding inserts (substantial in Japan, almost as large as advertisers’ payments to newspapers
for print ads).

𝑐̅ is the cost per page of actually printing the newspaper (where k and a are

the numbers of pages of content and of ads), fk is the first-copy cost of producing a page ofcontent and fa is the first-copy cost of producing a page of advertising.

Notice that becauseof the term 𝑐̅𝑎𝑠 in the cost function, the costs are not separable into cost of subscription andcost of advertising.

This makes it problematic to speak separately of the profits fromsubscriptions and from advertising.
The incremental costs cs , ca , and ck of supplying subscriptions, ads and content are thefollowing:
[4]
[5]
[6]

𝑐𝑠 =

𝜕𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪

𝑐𝑘 =

𝜕𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪

𝑐𝑎 =

𝜕𝑠

𝜕𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪
𝜕𝑎

𝜕𝑘

= 𝑐0 + 𝑐̅𝑎 + 𝑐̅𝑘= 𝑓𝑎 + 𝑐̅𝑠= 𝑓𝑘 + 𝑐̅𝑠

The newspaper chooses content, price of ads, and price of subscriptions to maximize total
profit:[7]

max𝑝𝑠 ,𝑝𝑎,𝑘 𝜋 = 𝑝𝑠 𝑠 + 𝑝𝑎 𝑎 − 𝑓𝑎 𝑎 − 𝑐̅𝑎𝑠 − 𝑓𝑘 𝑘 − 𝑐̅𝑘𝑠 − 𝑐0 𝑠

The necessary conditions for maximum profit reduce to the following pricing rules 2:
2

The price-cost margin for subscriptions exemplifies the behavior of a multi-product monopolist
supplying two goods that are complements in demand. In general, where the demands are as follows
4𝑝𝑎 −𝑐𝑎[8]𝑝𝑎

𝑝𝑠 −𝑐𝑠

[9]

𝑝𝑠

1

=𝜉
1

𝑎

𝑝 𝑎

= 𝜉 − 𝑝𝑎 𝑠𝑠𝑠Profit-maximizing also requires that content k, the number of pages not including ads, fulfills
the condition:
𝑐𝑘 𝑘

[10]

𝑝𝑠 𝑠

𝜃

=𝜉

𝑠

This expression resembles the Dorfman-Steiner condition describing optimal advertisingexpenditure.

This is because, analytically, the model here is the same as theDorfman-Steiner advertising model: Demand for subscriptions has constant elasticity (0 < θ<1) with respect to content, just as in the Dorfman-Steiner model demand for the product hasconstant elasticity with respect to quantity of ads.
Rearranging in a useful way, the pricing and content rules are:
[11]
[12]
[13]

1 −1

𝑝𝑎 = (𝑓𝑎 + 𝑐̅𝑠) �1 − 𝜉 �
𝑎

1 −1

𝑝 𝑎

𝑝𝑠 = �𝑐0 + 𝑐̅𝑎 + 𝑐̅𝑘 − 𝑎𝑠 � �1 − 𝜉 �𝑠𝜃𝑝 𝑠

𝑘 = 𝜉 (𝑓 𝑠+𝑐̅𝑠)𝑠𝑘

The subscription price ps is set as though the newspaper were receiving a subsidy per
subscriber equal to the marginal profit that arises indirectly from advertising with each copy
sold (for given price of advertising pa):
[14]

𝜕(𝑝𝑎 𝑎−𝑓𝑎 𝑎−𝑐̅𝑎𝑠) 𝜕𝑎
𝜕𝑎

𝜕𝑠

+

𝜕(𝑝𝑎 𝑎−𝑓𝑎 𝑎−𝑐̅𝑎𝑠)𝜕𝑠𝜕𝑎= (𝑝𝑎 − 𝑓𝑎 − 𝑐̅𝑠) 𝜕𝑠 − 𝑐̅𝑎𝑝 𝜉= (𝑝𝑎 − 𝑓𝑎 − 𝑐̅𝑠) 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 − 𝑐̅𝑎
=

𝑝𝑎 𝑎
𝑠

− 𝑐̅𝑎

This marginal profit equals the marginal revenue that arises indirectly from advertising(=paa/s), minus the added-cost-per-copy attributable to advertising (=𝑐̅𝑎).
Q1= A p1-ξ1 p2ξ12
Q2= B p2-ξ2 p1ξ21,

and marginal costs are c1 and c2, the profit-maximizing pricing rules are:(p1-c1)/p1=
1/ξ1 + ((p2-c2)/p2) (ξ21/ξ1) (p2Q2 / p1Q1)(p2-c2)/p2=
1/ξ2 + ((p1-c1)/p1) (ξ12/ξ2) (p1Q1 / p2Q2) .
See for example Tirole (1988, pp.69-71). But here the cross-elasticities of demand are:
ξ12=∂ln a / ∂ln ps = −ξaξs(=ξ1ξ2), andξ21=∂ln s/ ∂ln pa = 0.
5

3. Subscription to morning-edition-only versus morning-and-evening edition.
Many of the large circulation daily newspapers in Japan have both morning andevening editions.

Most of these offer their customers a choice between subscribing to themorning edition only, or subscribing to both editions.

The evening editions of these papers

generally have about one third as many pages of content as the morning editions and about
one fifth the number of pages of ads.

For detailed data on the subscription prices, pages ofcontent and pages of ads of morning and evening editions of selected Japanese newspapers in
2007, refer to Table 1. The newspapers in this table include the various regional editions of
the four national dailies, include the regional “bloc” dailies, and include the local(one-prefecture) newspapers that offer their subscribers a choice between morning-only andmorning-and-evening and that have circulation greater than 100,000 for each.

I exclude the

Nikkei Shimbun which is a business newspaper similar to the Wall Street Journal, not really ageneral news daily like the newspapers in the sample.
A useful way of thinking about the pricing and content of morning and evening
editions is with reference to the economics of nonlinear pricing.

The nonlinearity inheres in

the fact that the price per page of content is different for combined morning and evening
subscriptions than for just morning editions.

This suggests some useful lines of inquiry.

For instance, do newspaper publishers reduce the number of content pages of their morning
editions to discourage dual subscribers from cancelling their evening subscriptions, in thesame way that airlines reduce the quality of economy seating to discourage first-classpassengers from switching to economy? This is a phenomenon noted by the nineteenth
century French economist Jules Dupuit (1804-1866) with respect to train fares.

The Dupuit

phenomenon is an example of monopoly waste in the sense that quality of the lower priced
version of the product is reduced below the economically efficient level to conform with the
incentive compatibility constraint of the higher valuing customers.

This waste has been

empirically verified and estimated by McManus (2007) for coffee drink pricing.

Shum andCrawford (2007) infer similar wasteful degradation in the quality of cable TV offerings.
Another line of inquiry is whether comparisons of the demand for morning editions andfor combined morning and evening editions reveal underlying parameters related to theelasticity of demand for newspapers with respect to prices and to pages of content.

Withinthe simple framework set out above, I would suggest that these parameters are so revealed.
6This requires developing the micro-foundations of the constant-elasticity demand system.
Posit a population of households s=1,..,n, each of which has marginal valuation ofnewspaper content per page (that is printed pages k not including advertising), for a particular
newspaper, as follows:
[15]

𝜃

1

1

−

𝑣 ′ = 𝜉 𝐴 𝜉𝑠 𝑠 𝜉𝑠 𝑘𝑠where 0 < θ < 1, and ξs >1.

𝜉 −𝜃
𝜉𝑠

− 𝑠

This means that for each household, marginal value per page ofcontent becomes less as the number of pages increases, but this relationship is inelastic[16]

𝜕 ln 𝑣 ′𝜉 −𝜃

= − � 𝑠𝜉 � < 0𝜕 ln 𝑘𝑠> −1

It also means that the index s numbers households in rank order from the highest marginalvaluer (s=1) to the least (s=s>>>) :[17]

𝜕 ln 𝑣 ′𝜕 ln 𝑠1= −𝜉 < 0𝑠

The value to household s of a newspaper with km pages of content is[18]𝑘𝑣(𝑠) = ∫0 𝑚 𝑣 ′ (𝑘)𝑑𝑘
𝑘

𝜃

1

−

1

= ∫0 𝑚 𝜉 𝐴𝜉𝑠 𝑠 𝜉𝑠 𝑘
1
𝜉𝑠

=𝐴 𝑠

𝑠

1
−
𝜉𝑠

𝑘𝑘

𝜃
𝜉𝑠

𝜉 −𝜃
𝜉𝑠

− 𝑠

𝑑𝑘

And the demand for a newspaper with km pages of content is the number of households forwhich the value of the paper is greater than or equal to the price pm (of the morning edition,say).

Because the index s numbers households in rank order from the highest valuer to thelowest, the number of households for which the value of the newspaper is greater than orequal to its price equals the index identifying the household for which the value just equals
price.
[19]

That is the demand for morning edition with km pages of content is
𝑠𝑘 = 𝐴𝑝𝑘 −𝜉𝑠 𝑘𝑘 𝜃

Now suppose that rather than just the one newspaper, there are several newspapers, notjust a monopoly but an oligopoly.

If there are several different newspapers from which

demanders can choose, then 𝑣 ′ (𝑠), the marginal value of content pages in the one newspaper

by individual s, should be understood to mean the individual’s marginal value of content
pages in the one newspaper relative to his next highest valued alternative.

And as the one

newspaper comes to have more content, the alternative that is the individual’s next highest
7valued may become a different one than before. The population of demanders and their
marginal valuations of content in the one newspaper thus depend upon: (1) the choice set foreach demander, in other words which newspapers are available in the place where thedemander resides, (2) the number of pages of content of each alternative newspaper, and (3)the subscription price of each alternative newspaper.

The current framework represents thedemand for the one newspaper, while holding as fixed all these various details of the prices
and content of rival newspapers. Stole (2007, Section 6.2) discusses the deeper foundation forsuch a demand function, in cases where the products of competing firms are horizontallydifferentiated and where vertically differentiated.

A superficial treatment of thesefoundations is adequate for the partial equilibrium analysis I conduct here.
Next suppose that, again given the prices and contents of rival newspapers, subscribers
to the morning edition of the one newspaper may also subscribe to an evening edition of thesame newspaper. Denote the numbers of pages of content in the two editions km and ke .

Bysimilar reasoning to the above, the value of the evening edition to a subscriber of the morning
edition is𝑘 +𝑘𝑒𝑣𝑒 (𝑠) = ∫𝑘 𝑚

[20]

1

𝑚

−

1

𝑣 ′ (𝑘)𝑑𝑘𝜃𝜃= 𝐴𝜉𝑠 𝑠 𝜉𝑠 �(𝑘𝑘 + 𝑘𝑒 )𝜉𝑠 − 𝑘𝑘 𝜉𝑠 �

Denote by pe the price of the evening edition (so a joint subscription including both morningand evening editions is priced pm+pe).

The demand for the evening edition (that is, se suchthat ve(se)=pe ) is
[21]
Now
[22]

𝑠𝑒 = 𝐴𝑝𝑒
𝑠𝑒

𝑠𝑚

−𝜉𝑠

𝑝𝑚 𝜉𝑠

𝜃
𝜉𝑠

�(𝑘𝑘 + 𝑘𝑒 ) − 𝑘𝑘 �𝑘𝑚

= � 𝑝 � ��𝑘 +𝑘 �
𝑒

𝜃
𝜉𝑠

𝑚

𝑒

−

𝜃
𝜉𝑠

− 1�

𝜉𝑠

𝜉𝑠

I estimate the parameters ξs and θ in this equation [22] using nonlinear least squares.
The data for the estimate are, first, that shown in Table 1, for which the unit of observation is
the nation (aggregate data). The number of observations equal to 23 is simply the number ofnewspapers in the sample. The results of estimation using this dataset are in the left-handcolumn of Table 2.

It seems that price elasticity of demand ξs is near 1.2, while elasticity

of demand with respect to pages of content is around 0.5, values that seem plausible.
8

Butthe standard errors are very large.

In an attempt to estimate the parameters more precisely I

compiled a second dataset, including the same newspapers but for which the unit ofobservation for circulation is the city, town or village rather than the nation. I exclude any
observations with only morning subscribers or only morning-and-evening subscribers.

The

source of the circulation data is the Japan Audit Bureau of Circulation (from their website,behind a paywall).

Using this disaggregated data there are actually enough observations toestimate separate equations for Yomiuri and for Asahi which are shown in the table.

Theestimates for Yomiuri have price elasticity near 1.2 and elasticity with respect to pages ofcontent of 0.4, with standard errors much smaller than for the small sample.
Other results are less satisfactory. The estimate for Asahi has elasticity of demand
implausibly less than one at 0.9.

The full sample including all of the newspapers in theaggregate dataset also has this same disappointing result (price elasticity less than one).
Elasticity with respect to pages of content is estimated to be 0.3 for Asahi and for the fullsample.

In short, the results of this nonlinear estimation are mixed, but not entirely

discouraging.

The specification in equations [19] and [21], while not rendering precise

estimates of the elasticity parameters, does seem to be a reasonable framework for further
approximation of the effects of second-degree price discrimination by Japanese newspapers.
And I will proceed on that presumption. But before getting to that, I will first describe
estimates of the elasticity parameters using a different method.
An alternative to the nonlinear estimation (as in Table 2), is to construct estimates ofthe demand for each newspaper from estimates of an indirect utility function using microdata.
This I have done in another paper Flath (2012) that mainly focuses on the effects ofcoordinated pricing by the leading Japanese newspapers. Some details of the econometricspecification are described in the Appendix here, and estimates of the indirect utility function
as reported in the other paper are reprinted here as appendix Table A.1. The estimatedelasticity parameters based on simulations using that indirect utility function estimate areshown in Table 4. These represent the arc elasticities of demand for the morning edition with𝜕 ln 𝑠respect to increases in the number of pages of morning content �𝜕 ln 𝑘𝑚 = 𝜃�, and with𝑚

𝜕 ln 𝑠respect to an increase in the monthly morning subscription price �𝜕 ln 𝑝𝑚 = 𝜉𝑠 � . The𝑚simulations for computing these arc elasticities entail five percent increases in pages ofmorning content or in price of the morning edition, for each newspaper individually.

It

seems from the results reported in Table 4 that the elasticity of demand for morning edition
9with respect to pages of morning content is about 0.4 and the elasticity with respect tomorning subscription price averages about 1.3 and is a bit higher for the national newspapers
than for the local ones.
estimation.

This is not terribly different from the results using nonlinear

The next task is to estimate the distorting effects of the incentive compatibility

constraint using the above framework.

3. Towards an expanded model of pricing and content
Extending the basic framework to accommodate pricing and content choices bynewspaper publishers offering morning and evening editions requires some additional
assumptions.

First consider the demand for advertising.

The incremental cost of supplying

ads per subscriber is inversely related to number of subscribers.

The evening subscribers

are a subset of the morning subscribers. Why then would the newspaper even want to offer
advertising in the evening edition? Or to put it a different way, if as seems likely given thehigher incremental cost, the ad price per subscriber is greater for ads in the evening edition
than in the morning edition, then what advertiser would place an ad in the evening edition?
Perhaps advertisers who wish to specifically target evening subscribers would do so. The
evening subscribers have a greater demand for newspaper content and so plausibly are moreeducated and have higher incomes, which might make them valuable targets for someadvertisers. In the logic of the very general framework developed by Veiga and Weyl (2012),
enabling targeted advertising could be a sufficient motivation for offering an evening editionin the first place, not mutually exclusive from the motivation of profiting from nonlinear
pricing of subscriptions.
Let us assume then that the demand for ads in the morning edition is independent of
the demand for ads in the evening edition. Now, given the number of pages of content in bothmorning and evening editions km and ke, and assuming the demands for ads in the two
editions are independent of one another, the profit-maximizing pricing rules are
edition-specific variants of the rules derived in the basic framework 1:
1

Perhaps the notation here is obvious enough from analogy with the single-edition case shown by equations[3]-[10]. So for example, the profit function for the dual-edition newspaper becomes
𝜋 = 𝑝𝑠 𝑠𝑘 − (𝑐̅(𝑎𝑘 + 𝑘𝑘 ) + 𝑐0𝑘 )𝑠𝑘 + (𝑝𝑎𝑘 − 𝑓𝑎𝑘 )𝑎𝑘 − 𝑓𝑘𝑘 𝑘𝑘𝑚+𝑝𝑠 𝑠𝑒 − (𝑐̅(𝑎𝑒 + 𝑘𝑒 ) + 𝑐0𝑒 )𝑠𝑒 + (𝑝𝑎𝑒 − 𝑓𝑎𝑒 )𝑎𝑒 − 𝑓𝑘𝑒 𝑘𝑒 ,𝑒and the incremental cost of morning content isand so on.

𝑐𝑘𝑘 =

𝜕𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪
= 𝑓𝑘𝑘 + 𝑐̅𝑠𝑚
𝜕𝑘𝑚

10

[23]

𝑝𝑎𝑚 −𝑐𝑎𝑚[24]

𝑝𝑠𝑚 −𝑐𝑠𝑚[25]

𝑝𝑎𝑒 −𝑐𝑎𝑒[26]

𝑝𝑠𝑒 −𝑐𝑠𝑒

=𝜉

𝑝𝑎𝑚

𝑎𝑚

𝑝𝑎 𝑎𝑚

1

= 𝜉 − 𝑝 𝑚𝑠

𝑝𝑠𝑚

𝑠

𝑠𝑚 𝑚

1

=𝜉

𝑝𝑎𝑒

𝑝𝑠𝑒

1

𝑎𝑒

1

𝑝𝑎 𝑎𝑒

= 𝜉 − 𝑝 𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑒 𝑒

Notice that in the framework here, the demands for subscriptions are independent withrespect to changes in prices.

This is because the marginal subscriber to the evening edition

attains positive consumer surplus from the morning edition.

Thus a slightly higher or lower

price for the morning edition pm only affects demand by morning-only subscribers, notmorning-and-evening subscribers.

And a slightly higher or lower price of the evening

edition has no effect on demand for the morning edition. The rules for profit-maximizing
content are a bit different, reflecting the interdependence in demand for subscriptions withrespect to choice of content.
-compatibility constraint.

The interdependence is a manifestation of the incentive

The newspaper publisher adjusts pages of content mindful thatthe marginal morning-and-evening subscriber attains zero consumer surplus from the evening
edition but positive consumer surplus from the morning edition.
The profit-maximizing content rules are:
[27]
where
[28]

𝑐𝑘𝑚 𝑘𝑚𝑝𝑠𝑚 𝑠𝑚𝜕 ln 𝑠𝑒𝜕 ln 𝑘𝑚

𝜃

𝑚

[29]
where

𝑝𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒�= −𝜃 �

and𝑐𝑘𝑒 𝑘𝑒1𝑝𝑠 𝑠

𝜕 ln 𝑠= 𝜉 ∗ + 𝜉 ∗ �𝑝 𝑒𝑠𝑒 � �𝜕 ln 𝑘 𝑒 �

=

�

𝑠𝑚 𝑚

𝑚

𝜃
𝑘𝑚
𝑘
�−� 𝑚 �𝜉𝑠
𝑘𝑚 +𝑘𝑒𝑘𝑚 +𝑘𝑒𝜃𝑘1−� 𝑚 �𝜉𝑠
𝑘𝑚 +𝑘𝑒𝜕 ln 𝑠𝑒�𝜕 ln 𝑘𝑒
∗
𝜉𝑒

11

�<0 ,

𝜕 ln 𝑠𝑒�= 𝜃�𝜕 ln 𝑘[31]

𝑒and where
1

[32]

𝜉𝑚

and

1

[33]

𝜉𝑒

=

∗

∗

=

𝑘𝑒
�
𝑘𝑚 +𝑘𝑒𝜃𝑘1−� 𝑚 �𝜉𝑠
𝑘𝑚 +𝑘𝑒𝑝𝑠𝑚 −𝑐𝑠𝑚 +𝑝𝑎𝑚 𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑠𝑚

𝑝𝑠𝑒 −𝑐𝑠𝑒 +𝑝𝑠𝑒𝑠𝑚

𝑝𝑎𝑒 𝑎𝑒𝑠𝑒� > 𝜃,,.

The stipulations [32] and [33] are to allow for the possibility of collusive setting ofsubscription prices.

Many of the leading newspapers of Japan set the same subscription

prices as one another which are higher than the prices set by other newspapers.

Thus it may

well be, as argued in Flath (2012), that the newspapers are collusively raising their prices sothat 𝜉𝑘 ∗ < 𝜉𝑠 and 𝜉𝑒 ∗ < 𝜉𝑠 . But the equation [27] would in that case still characterize theprofit-maximizing choice of morning content pages 𝑘𝑘 .

The second term on the right-hand side of equation [27], which as shown by equation[28] is negative, reflects the incentive-compatibility constraint. The upshot is that thenewspaper publisher reduces the content of the morning edition compared to what it would
choose if not offering a morning and evening edition. By how much? Setting parameters
θ=0.4 and ξs=1.3, and based on the values for �

𝑘𝑒

𝑝𝑠 𝑠𝑒

� and �𝑝 𝑒 𝑠 � implied in Table 1 for𝑘 +𝑘

𝜕 𝑙𝑛 𝑠𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑚 𝑚

the sample newspapers, 𝜕 𝑙𝑛 𝑘 𝑒 =—0.08. Setting θ and ξs at the levels indicated by the micro𝑚data estimates increases this slightly (to —0.09 on average) as shown in the last column ofTable 3. It seems from this that the incentive compatibility constraint causes a reduction in
𝑐𝑘𝑚 𝑘𝑚𝑝𝑠𝑚 𝑠𝑚𝜕 ln 𝑠1of about 6% = − �𝜕 ln 𝑘 𝑒 � �𝜉 ∗� = 0.08 ÷ 1.3.
𝑚𝑚

If the daily content in the morning

edition is km=20 pages, which is about average for the sample newspapers, then we could saythat the incentive-compatibility constraint leads to withholding of around one page daily fromthe morning edition.

That is, the newspaper shorts the content of the morning edition by

about one page each day, only to preserve demand for the evening edition.

To determine themonetary value of the economic waste from this shorting of the morning edition content
requires an estimate of the actual demand for newspapers as in the Flath (2012) estimate of12indirect utility function using micro data, described in the Appendix, and which I will again
exploit.
Appendix Table A.1 reports the utility function parameter estimates from Flath (2012).
Dividing the other coefficients by the estimated marginal disutility of subscription priceconverts them to monetary units (yen per month). Using this procedure, I am able to construct
the marginal value of pages of content per month for each individual respondent. Summing
the marginal values of the respondents that subscribe to each edition of each newspaper gives
the marginal value of content pages in those newspapers. This is a similar exercise to the
McManus (2007) estimate of the marginal value of coffee drinks.
aggregate data, where mine is based on micro-data.

But his estimate relied on

My estimation procedure is lesstechnically demanding which is not necessarily a bad thing. The marginal values of content
for each newspaper are in Table 4.
The marginal value of content pages is slightly less for morning-only subscribers
than for morning-and-evening subscribers of the same newspaper, averaging 1.13 yen per
page per month per morning-only subscriber compared to 0.91 yen per page per month permorning-and-evening subscriber.

The net social benefit per morning-only subscriber fromincreasing the content of the morning edition by one page per month while decreasing thecontent of the evening edition by one page (that is switching the content page from theevening edition to the morning edition) equals the marginal value to the representative
morning-only subscriber minus the cost per morning-only subscriber of printing the page.
In Flath (2012) I estimate that cost to be 0.96 yen per page, which means that the net social
benefit per morning-only subscriber of switching a content page from the evening edition to
the morning edition is 1.13-0.96=0.17 yen.

To do this daily would have a social benefit ofapproximately 30×0.17=6.1 yen per month. This is small compared to the subscription
prices that average around 3,000 yen per month for morning-only subscription.

6.

Conclusion
Many of the large circulation Japanese newspapers offer demanders a choice between

subscribing to the morning edition only, or to both the morning edition and evening edition.
The price per page of content differs between these, which is an example of second-degree
price discrimination based on self-selection by demanders.
13

The subscription price scheduleamounts to a nonlinear tariff, gauged to maximize newspaper profit.

The possibility ofengaging in such profitable price discrimination is one reason even to offer an evening
edition in the first place, which seems not to have been previously remarked.

Thepossibility of targeting advertising on higher income subscribers who are more likely to
subscribe to an evening edition along with the morning edition is another reason to offer anevening edition.

Subscriber preference for more frequent news is yet another reason. As

newspapers move to digital rather than print format, some analogue of the “evening edition”
is likely to be profitable for all of the reasons that apply to the print version.
Here I have argued that not only the subscription prices but also the number of pages ofcontent in each edition are gauged to maximize newspaper profit subject to the constraint that
subscribers rationally maximize utility. I impute that if the typical large circulation Japanesenewspaper added a page or two to the twenty pages of content in each day’s morning edition
it would provoke some cancellations of evening subscriptions. Except for that, switching a
page from the evening edition to the morning edition each day would be profitable.

14Appendix. Estimates of the Demand for Newspapers Using Micro-Data
In Flath (2012) I estimate an indirect utility function for Japanese newspaper
subscriptions based on March 2007 survey data, and use the estimates to simulate the effectof a deviation from coordinated pricing by the leading newspapers. Here I will briefly
describe the indirect utility estimate and note the parts of the estimate that are relevant to thesecond-degree price discrimination that is the main focus of the present essay.
The micro-data come from a March 2007 random-direct-dial telephone survey of
27,788 persons living throughout Japan conducted by Video Research, Ltd. (the 2007 editionof its annual JREAD survey).

I use these data to estimate the common parameters of amixed-logit indirect utility function relating respondents’ choices among available daily
newspaper subscriptions (including the choice of not subscribing to any newspaper), to theirown individual characteristics such as age, income and education and to attributes of thenewspapers available in the prefecture where each resides.

Attributes of the newspapers

include subscription price, number of pages of content per month, and whether thesubscription is morning-and-evening or morning-only.

Although the national newspapers

are priced the same everywhere in Japan, they compete with different local and regional
newspapers in each prefecture.

The variation in choice sets across prefectures is sufficient

to identify the effects of subscription price and other newspaper attributes on respondents’choices.
The basic econometric model is a multinomial logit model of utility with randomcoefficient on one variable, price of subscription. The utility of newspaper subscription
choice j by individual i is a linear function of (1) attributes of the choice, (2) interactions
between choice-invariant characteristics of the individual and attributes of the choice, and (3)an unobservable error 𝜀𝑖𝑗 that varies randomly across individuals and alternatives according
to the Gumbel distribution (Type I Extreme Value distribution).

The utility function

coefficient on price of subscription 𝑝𝑗 varies randomly across individuals according to theNormal distribution.
[23]

𝑈𝑖𝑗 = 𝛽 ′ 𝑥𝑖𝑗 + 𝛼𝑖 𝑝𝑗 + 𝜀𝑖𝑗
𝛼𝑖 = 𝛼 + 𝜎𝜐𝑖 , where 𝜐𝑖 ~ 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 [0, 1]
𝜀𝑖𝑗 ~ 𝐺𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑙

The individual i chooses from among his choice set Ci the one alternative with the greatest
utility value. The choice set includes any newspapers available for subscription in the place
15

where the person lives and the choice of subscribing to no newspaper at all (j=0).

Because𝑥𝑖0 = 0 and 𝑝0 = 0, the mean utility value of not subscribing to any newspaper is zero:
Ui0=0.

From the observed choice set of each individual, observed attributes of eachalternative, observed characteristics of each individual, and observed choice of eachindividual, I estimate the parameters of the utility function that are common to all individuals(𝛽, 𝛼, 𝜎) using the method of simulated maximum likelihood (computed with the software
NLOGIT).

The variables that enter the utility function are made up as follows.
Attributes of the newspaper subscription choices that do not vary across individuals:—Subscription price (units=yen per month) pj—Natural logarithm of number of pages of content per month (“news hole”)
Interactions between choice-invariant characteristics of the individual and attributes of the
choice (with units of measurement equal to underlined expressions where present, otherwise
equal to zero or one):—Age head of household (one of four discrete intervals) ×
1. Natural log of pages of content per month
2. National newspaper × morning-and-evening subscription
3. Local or Bloc newspaper × morning-and-evening subscription—Household annual income (one of sixteen discrete intervals ranging from zero to
30-million yen or more per year) if greater than zero ×
1. Natural log of pages of content per month
2. National newspaper × morning-and-evening subscription
3. Local or Bloc newspaper × morning-and-evening subscription—Each national newspaper (Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi, Sankei) ×
1. Survey response: “Participates in local festivals and holiday events.”
2. Head of household highest education level is college or above—For each national and bloc paper, square of road distance (th. Km) from newspaper homebase to each individual’s prefecture of residence (home base for national papers Yomiuri,
Asahi and Mainichi: Tokyo, for Sankei: Osaka; and for bloc papers Chunichi: Aichi,
Chugoku: Hiroshima, and Nishi Nippon: Fukuoka).
Appendix Table A.1 reports the utility function parameter estimates. Dividing the othercoefficients by the estimated marginal disutility of subscription price converts them tomonetary units (yen per month).

16

Table A1. Random-parameter logit estimate of indirect utility function
Variable
Subscription price (yen per mo.) pj

Parameter

Mean of random coefficient

𝜶

-23.8

0.00031 0.00005

7.0-0.143

0.057

-2.5

× Household annual income =less than 1 million yen
1million yen up to 2 million yen
2 million yen up to 3 million yen
3 million yen up to 4 million yen
4 million yen up to 5 million yen
5 million yen up to 6 million yen
6 million yen up to 7 million yen
7 million yen up to 8 million yen
8 million yen up to 9 million yen
9 million yen up to 10 million yen
10 million yen up to 12 million yen
12 million yen up to 15 million yen
15 million yen up to 20 million yen
20 million yen up to 30 million yen
30 million yen or more

-0.055-0.097-0.050-0.005
0.028
0.039
0.075
0.096
0.080
0.084
0.129
0.153
0.135
0.113
0.191

0.020
0.016
0.015
0.014
0.014
0.015
0.016
0.017
0.019
0.019
0.021
0.027
0.031
0.053
0.087

-2.8
-5.9
-3.4
-0.4
1.9
2.6
4.7
5.5
4.2
4.3
6.1
5.7
4.3
2.1
2.2

× Age, head of household =up to 24 yrs.
25 yrs to 44 yrs
45 yrs to 64 yrs
65 yrs or more

0.271
0.400
0.603
0.755

0.050
0.056
0.057
0.059

5.4
7.2
10.5
12.7

× Household annual income =less than 1 million yen
1million yen up to 2 million yen
2 million yen up to 3 million yen
3 million yen up to 4 million yen
4 million yen up to 5 million yen
5 million yen up to 6 million yen
6 million yen up to 7 million yen
7 million yen up to 8 million yen
8 million yen up to 9 million yen
9 million yen up to 10 million yen
10 million yen up to 12 million yen
12 million yen up to 15 million yen
15 million yen up to 20 million yen
20 million yen up to 30 million yen
30 million yen or more

0.176
0.233
0.309
0.394
0.287
0.290
0.359
0.516
0.495
0.625
0.656
0.771
0.844
0.969
1.089

0.133
0.105
0.073
0.063
0.062
0.063
0.063
0.067
0.077
0.073
0.069
0.080
0.102
0.176
0.217

1.3
2.2
4.2
6.3
4.6
4.6
5.7
7.8
6.5
8.6
9.5
9.7
8.3
5.5
5.0

𝜷:

lnkj
lnkj

lnkj

Morning-and-Evening subscription
to National newspaperz-0.00073 0.00003

s.d. in subscription price randomcoefficient𝝈ln pages of content per month

s.e.

17

Variables.e.

z-0.187
0.487
0.553
0.438
0.365
0.465
0.447
0.452
0.699
0.659
0.495
0.651
0.727
0.754
1.267

0.192
0.116
0.079
0.071
0.075
0.076
0.079
0.089
0.102
0.103
0.101
0.130
0.171
0.305
0.300

-1.0
4.2
7.0
6.2
4.9
6.1
5.6
5.1
6.9
6.4
4.9
5.0
4.3
2.5
4.2

× Asahi
MainichiYomiuri
Sankei-0.647-1.266-0.339-1.808

0.030
0.040
0.029
0.066

-21.4
-31.9
-11.9
-27.4

× Asahi
MainichiYomiuri
Sankei

0.272-0.471-0.152-1.028

0.036
0.048
0.039
0.079

7.6
-9.9
-3.9
-13.0

Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri

× Th. Km from Tokyo, squared-0.010

0.000

-41.3

Sankei
ChunichiChugokuNishi Nippon

×
×
×
×

-0.056-0.211-0.932-0.664

0.002
0.021
0.064
0.043

-26.8
-10.1
-14.6
-15.5

Morning-and-Evening subscription
to Local or Bloc newspaper

Parameter× Household annual income =less than 1 million yen
1million yen up to 2 million yen
2 million yen up to 3 million yen
3 million yen up to 4 million yen
4 million yen up to 5 million yen
5 million yen up to 6 million yen
6 million yen up to 7 million yen
7 million yen up to 8 million yen
8 million yen up to 9 million yen
9 million yen up to 10 million yen
10 million yen up to 12 million yen
12 million yen up to 15 million yen
15 million yen up to 20 million yen
20 million yen up to 30 million yen
30 million yen or more

Participates in local festivals andholiday events

Head of household highest
education level is college or above

Th. Km from Osaka, squared
Th. Km from Aichi, squared
Th. Km from Hiroshima, squared
Th. Km from Fukuoka, squared

n=27,778
Chi squared [65 d.f.]= 132,971
Log likelihood function= -51,966
Restricted log likelihood= -118,451
Inf.Cr.AIC=104062 AIC/N = 3.745

18References
Argentesi, Elena and Lapo Filistrucchi.

(2007).

“Estimating Market Power in a

Two-Sided Market: The Case of Newspapers”, Journal of Applied Econometrics, vol.
22, pp. 1247-1266.

Busse, Meghan and Rysman, Marc. (2005). “Competition and Price Discrimination in Yellow
Pages Advertising”, RAND Journal of Economics, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Summer), pp. 378-390.

Cohen, Andrew. (2001). “Package Size and Price Discrimination in the Paper Towel Market”,
International Journal of Industrial Organization, 26, pp.502–516

Fan, Ying. (2011). “Ownership Consolidation and Product Quality: A Study of the U.S. Daily
Newspaper Market”, unpublished manuscript.

Flath, David. (2012). “Japanese Newspapers”, unpublished manuscript.

McManus, Brian (2007). “Nonlinear Pricing in an Oligopoly Market: The Case of Specialty
Coffee”, RAND Journal of Economics, vol. 38, pp.512-532.

Shum, Matthew and Crawford, Gregory S. (2007). “Monopoly Product Degradation in Cable
Television”, Journal of Law and Economics, v50n1 (February), 181-209.

Stole, Lars. A. (2007). “Price Discrimination and Competition”, Ch. 8 in Mark Armstrong
and Robert Porter, eds., Handbook of Industrial Organization, Vol. 3, Amsterdam:
North-Holland, 2007.

Tirole, Jean (1987). Theory of Industrial Organization, MIT Press.

Van Cayseele, Patrick and Stijn Vanormelingen. (2009). “Prices and Network Effects in
Two-Sided Markets: the Belgian Newspaper Industry”, unpublished manuscript.

Veiga, André and Weyl, Glen (2012). “Multidimensional Product Design”, unpublishedmanuscript.
19

Table 1.

Morning and evening monthly subscription prices, circulation, pages of content

and pages of ads; selected Japanese daily newspapers, 2007

pe

pm

sm

se

pages ofcontent per
month
km
ke

918

3,007

155,750

53,740

621

159

466

82

918

3,007

424,246

146,107

598

189

451

70

918
918
918

3,007 2,336,911 1,294,724
3,007 4,358,660 1,958,061
3,007
791,140
135,628

599
606
605

188
223
181

544
618
507

163
190
88

918

3,007

72,617

17,697

524

174

267

38

918
918
918
918

3,007
176,101
3,007 1,419,552
3,007 1,640,998
3,007
664,559

49,069830,585
462,952
102,896

546
547
575
498

169
180
204
151

267
377
379
346

47
113
81
63

918

3,007

64,396

614

233

522

101

918
918
918
975
918
918
700
925
918
918
918
918

3,007
3,007
3,007
2,950
3,007
3,007
2,550
3,000
3,007
3,007
3,007
3,007

2,547,583 1,332,683
6,068,547 2,357,250
914,687
109,479
1,224,957
633,154
1,204,151
639,634
501,356
109,871585,508
280,889
2,774,585
650,297510,000
317,881
561,881
254,782
717,794
73,628854,655
175,518

609
590
578
581
599
611
592
617
589
587
629
600

234
282
191
227
252
136
203
217
173
185
162
183

608
640
521
320
553
364
299
465
344
314
416
476

179
195
78
124
131
65
90
121
113
121
46
131

subscription
price yen
per month
Newspaper
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN(Hokkaido)
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN(Nagoya)
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Osaka)
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Tokyo)
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Seibu)
MAINICHI SHIMBUN(Hokkaido)
MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Nagoya)
MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Osaka)
MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Tokyo)
MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Seibu)
YOMIURI SHIMBUN(Hokkaido)
YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Osaka)
YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Tokyo)
YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Seibu)
SANKEI SHIMBUN (Osaka)
HOKKAIDO SHIMBUNTHE KAHOKU SHIMPOTHE TOKYO SHIMBUNTHE CHUNICHI SHIMBUNKYOTO SHIMBUN
KOBE SHIMBUNTHE CHUGOKU SHIMBUNTHE NISHI-NIPPON SHIMBUN

circulation

232,992

pages ofads per
month
am
ae

Sources:
pages of ads, total pages: Dentsu Inc.

Dentsuu koukoku nenkan (Dentsu advertising annual).

subscription prices, circulation: Japan Audit Bureau of Circulation. shimbun hakkousha repooto (newspaper publisher
report), 2007 (Jan to June average) and 2007 (July to December average).

20

Table 2.

Nonlinear least squares regression

Estimating equation:
𝜉𝑠

𝑝𝑘
𝑘𝑘
𝑠𝑒
= � � ���𝑠𝑘𝑝𝑒𝑘𝑘 + 𝑘𝑒

−

𝜃
𝜉𝑠

𝜉𝑠

− 1� + ε

Estimates and Asymptotic Standard Errors

Aggregate
Data*parameter

Disaggregated Data (cities)
Yomiuri

Asahi

Full
Sample**

1.24

1.21

0.86

0.93

0.65

0.14

0.12

0.06

0.50

0.41

0.31

0.29

0.49

0.09

0.09

0.04

n

23

525

612

2377

F

64.7

1333.82446.96981.6

𝜉𝑠
𝜃

s.e.

s.e.

*Based on national circulation, from Table 1.
**Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi, Sankei, Hokkaido Shimbun, Kyoto Shimbun, Kobe Shimbun,
Chugoku Shimbun, Chunichi, Kahoku Shimpo, Nishi Nippon, Tokyo Shimbun

21

Table 3. Arc elasticities of demand for the morning edition with respect to pages of content
per month 𝜃 and with respect to subscription price 𝜉s, based on indirect utility function, andvalue of 𝜕𝜕 lnln 𝑘𝑠𝑒𝑒 implied by these elasticities

Newspaper
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
MAINICHI SHIMBUNYOMIURI SHIMBUNSANKEI SHIMBUNHOKKAIDO SHIMBUNTHE KAHOKU SHIMPOTHE TOKYO SHIMBUNTHE CHUNICHI SHIMBUNKYOTO SHIMBUN
KOBE SHIMBUNTHE CHUGOKU SHIMBUNTHE NISHINIPPON SHIMBUN

MEAN
S.D.

𝜃

𝜉s

0.42
0.44
0.42
0.43
0.29
0.41
0.39
0.40
0.37
0.46
0.32
0.36

1.45
1.60
1.49
1.26
0.84
1.06
1.15
1.51
1.33
1.29
1.20
1.27

0.39
0.05

1.29
0.21

22

𝜕 ln 𝑠𝑒⎛= 𝜃⎜𝜕 ln 𝑘𝑒⎝𝑘𝑒��
𝑘𝑘 + 𝑘𝑒

⎞

𝜃⎟
𝜉𝑠

𝑘𝑘
1−�
�
𝑘𝑘 + 𝑘𝑒 ⎠

-0.12
-0.12
-0.11
-0.12
-0.07
-0.04
-0.09
-0.07
-0.16
-0.10
-0.02
-0.05
-0.09
0.04

Table 4. Marginal value of a page of content, averaged across morning-only subscribers andmorning-and-evening subscribers, based on indirect utility function estimate
Marginal Value, averaged
over subscribers

pages ofcontent per month (units=yen per page ofcontent)
Newspaper

km

ke

km+ke

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Hokkaido)

621

159

780

0.81

0.94

𝜟

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Nagoya)

598

189

787

1.10

0.93

-0.17

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Osaka)

599

188

788

1.08

0.88

-0.21

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Tokyo)

606

223

829

1.09

0.87

-0.21

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Seibu)

605

181

785

1.07

0.95

-0.12

MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Hokkaido)

524

174

698

1.25

0.95

-0.30

MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Nagoya)

546

169

715

1.42

1.14

-0.28

MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Osaka)

547

180

727

1.33

0.94

-0.39

MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Tokyo)

575

204

779

1.33

0.90

-0.43

MAINICHI SHIMBUN (Seibu)

498

151

649

1.49

1.08

-0.42

YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Hokkaido)

614

233

847

1.00

0.83

-0.17

YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Osaka)

609

234

842

0.99

0.76

-0.24

YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Tokyo)

590

282

871

1.11

0.82

-0.29

YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Seibu)

578

191

808

1.16

0.84

-0.32

SANKEI SHIMBUN (Osaka)

581

227

851

0.97

0.78

-0.19

HOKKAIDO SHIMBUN

599

252

747

1.08

0.94

-0.14

THE KAHOKU SHIMPO

611

136

795

1.14

0.91

-0.23

THE TOKYO SHIMBUN

592

203

834

1.06

0.88

-0.19

THE CHUNICHI SHIMBUN

617

217

762

1.06

0.90

-0.16

KYOTO SHIMBUN

589

173

772

1.11

0.91

-0.21

KOBE SHIMBUN

587

185

791

1.05

0.93

-0.12

THE CHUGOKU SHIMBUN

629

162

783

1.13

0.97

-0.15

THE NISHI-NIPPON SHIMBUN

600

183

780

0.81

0.94

0.13

MEAN

588

196

784

1.13

0.91

-0.22

S.D.

33

35

54

0.15

0.09

0.12

23

MV(km)

MV(km+ke)

0.13