A Comparison of Quality and Retail Price of Domestically Produced and Imported Blazers

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Abstract
There has been increasing interest in the relationships among country of origin and the price and quality of apparel items. The purpose of this study was to investigate price and quality differences from one category of domestic and imported apparel-women's blazers. The perfect information frontier framework provided a theoretical context for this research. Empirically, t-tests were used to determine whether statistically significant differences exist between the mean price and quality of domestic and imported jackets, while Spearman rank correlations were used in describing the relationship between retail price and quality for these samples. Regression analysis was used to investigatefurther the effect of additional variables on the relationship between price and quality. The results indicated no significant difference between imported and domestic jackets with respect to price and quality and a weak significant difference between the price-quality correlations. Jacket quality, fiber content, store type, and store location were found to influence significantly price. These results imply that country-of-origin labeling may not be an accurate signal of quality or "best value "for consumers to use when shopping for women'sjackets. Additionally, the results suggest that neither retailers nor manufacturers may be on strong grounds in arguing that country of origin makes a difference in the retail prices consumers pay or in the "value" that consumers obtain. Further research could improve upon the limitations of this study by examining additional categories of apparel in a variety of markets during other times of the year. A comparison of quality scores with and without subjective criteria would also be of interest.

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