基于零售商垄断势力的纵向关系理论研究述评

基于零售商垄断势力的纵向关系主要有两种:零售商的抗衡力量以及零售商向生产商实施纵向控制.本文梳理了国内外关于这两个方面的理论成果,并对现有研究进行了简要的评价和展望.     

零售商垄断势力及通道费的福利分析

拥有买方垄断势力的零售商对生产商存在纵向约束,近年来零售商在产业链中越来越占有主导地位,向生产商收取高额的通道费。本文在一种的市场结构下,分析通道费的存在对生产商、零售商和消费者福利的影响,得出通道费会使得产品价格上升,社会福利受到影响,影响程度与需求曲线的形状有关。     

渠道控制的经济分析及其政策含义

本文研究了分销渠道的纵向控制问题。随着强势零售商的出现,零售商控制渠道取代了生产商控制渠道。本文基于产业链纵向关系理论,利用连续古诺模型的分析方法,对零售商控制和生产商控制的福利效果进行了比较。结论是,在零售市场存在有效竞争的前提下,零售商买方势力作为生产商垄断的抗衡者,将增进社会福利。     

跨国零售商与本土制造商的纵向限制关系研究

本文通过特许费用案例分析跨国零售商与我国本土制造商的纵行限制关系,通过扩展关于买方集中、纵向限制的纵向关系模型,集中探讨了具有垄断势力的下游跨国零售商对上游供货商的纵向限制行为,最终对跨国零售商对我国本土制造商的影响提出了针对性的政策建议。     

主导零售商买方势力背景下的制造商技术创新决策

针对零售市场中大型零售组织买方势力不断增强的现象,研究了制造商的技术创新决策。在由上游垄断制造商、下游主导零售商和边缘零售商组成的纵向市场结构下,构建了四阶段的技术创新决策模型,提炼了主导零售商的谈判势力特征和市场份额特征,给出了主导零售商买方势力背景下制造商的最优创新决策,分析了主导零售商的谈判势力和市场份额对制造商技术创新决策的影响。最后通过具体算例探讨了参数变化对主要结论的影响,并据此提出了促进企业技术创新的建议。     

我国零售商与快速消费品供应商市场集中度的实证对比分析

如今拥有市场势力的零售商对快速消费品供应商采取各种纵向约束策略，文章通过测算两方的市场集中度来对比分析双方的市场势力。并找出形成市场势力不平衡的原因，为今后研究这种现实对社会福利的影响及政府产业政策的制定提供基础。     

行政权力、纵向约束与管制困境

"行政性垄断"是我国垄断或寡头垄断产业与成熟市场经济体制的一个最为显著的区别,本文通过对相关案例的分析表明,在缺乏有效规制和监管的条件下,"行政性垄断"与市场势力相结合,严重地阻碍了这些产业的市场化进程,突出表现就是垄断企业依托行政性权力,通过市场进入、产权安排、价格制定、技术标准和市场划分等诸多手段来限制有效竞争的形成,即通过市场圈定将潜在的进入者从市场中排斥出去,以创造和维持非经济意义上的垄断势力.基于行政权力的纵向约束也是管制低效的一个主要原因,本文指出强化管制者的独立性和权威是管制重建的重要环节.     

零售商买方势力一定会导致通道费吗？--基于纵向市场结构的合作博弈分析

关于通道费的研究,有一种观点认为通道费是零售商买方势力的体现。但是现实经济中有些具有买方势力的零售商收取通道费,而另一些却不收取通道费,买方势力的观点不能对这一现象作出解释。针对此,构建双边双寡头的纵向市场结构模型,并在模型中引入零售商的价格竞争和服务竞争,在合作博弈的框架下分析研究了零售商买方势力与通道费之间的关系。研究发现买方势力并不是出现通道费的充分条件,而只是必要条件,通道费的出现与否除了与零售商买方势力有关外,还与其他的市场环境因素有关。最后,通过线性需求函数的特例对这一结论进行了验证,并在此基础之上提出了相应的规制政策建议。     

外资零售商扩张对我国零供关系的影响

伴随着外资零售商进入我国市场并迅速发展,从规模扩张到资本运营,其市场势力日益增强,不仅影响到我国零售业内部的企业间关系,也影响到我国零售商与供应商之间的纵向关系以及供应商的行为,为此我国应基于市场对强势外资零售商的市场势力进行抑制,促进和谐零供关系的构建。     

自有品牌与买方抗衡势力假说

买方抗衡势力假说是产业组织理论关注和争议的焦点。零售商自有品牌的引入构成对制造商品牌的竞争,对谈判各方实力和收益的作用不可忽视,严重影响着买方抗衡势力的竞争效应和福利效应。为此,本文借助纵向产品差异化模型刻画零售商自有品牌与制造商品牌的竞争,重新检验买方抗衡势力假说是否成立。研究结果表明,零售商买方抗衡势力增强的确会降低制造商品牌产品的批发价格和零售价格,改善消费者福利。但零售商买方抗衡势力会提高自有品牌产品的零售价格,并且外资零售商的买方抗衡势力会恶化本国福利。对此,笔者建议反不正当竞争执法机构应密切关注零售商的买方抗衡势力与自有品牌策略,发现和查处可能滥用相对优势地位限制竞争和损害福利的行为。     

Antitrust Enforcement and Nonenforcement as a Barrier to Imports – with Illustrations from the Japanese Film Dispute

The role of antitrust in opening foreign markets to imports is a strong yet often unpredictable undercurrent in international trade disputes. The U.S. government may seek to protect its exporters who are denied access to a foreign market either by enforcing U.S. antitrust laws or by using trade law remedies against the importing country for not enforcing its antitrust laws. Both actions raise issues of extraterritorial jurisdiction and comity.The primary goals of antitrust law and trade law are sometimes complementary but often diverge. Antitrust is primarily intended to benefit consumer welfare, while the purpose of trade law is to gain access to foreign markets for the benefit of domestic enterprises and their workforces. Consequently foreign market access pursued under antitrust law can raise novel issues when there is no apparent injury to domestic consumer welfare suffers from too little competition, whereas trade law pursue market access strictly as principles of fairness that have no necessary relationship with consumer welfare anywhere.This paper examines two aspects of antitrust law – (1) non-enforcement by the importing country, and (2) enforcement of U.S. law to compel access to the foreign market – and discusses the current dispute between Eastman Kodak Co. and Fujji Photo Film Co. as an illustration of the issues introduced above.     

Local monopsony and free riders

In an industry with upstream economies of scale in the distribution of differentiated products to retailers which have monopoly power within separate local market areas, the retailers have an incentive to exert monopsony power due to the divergence between average and marginal costs in the distribution of those inputs. The retailers increase their ability to exert monopsony power by forming coalitions (that is, chains) across local markets. Sufficiently large retail chains may force input price below the seller's average cost, thus ‘free riding’ on the level of product variety supported by other retailers. Vertical integration, cartels, or other cooperative behavior, however, can be means to control the level of product variety, and may increase both industry profits and economic welfare. Policy applications to the cable television, motion picture, and pharmaceutical industries are discussed.     

JAPANESE ANTITRUST: RECONCILING THEORY AND EVIDENCE

Japanese antitrust law exempts a variety of vertical and horizontal restraints that remain closely regulated in the United States. Despite these dissimilar antitrust environments, however, market concentration, firms' exercise of market power, and deadweight loss from monopoly are highly similar in the two countries. The hypothesis that antitrust alters the relative mix of price to non-price competition rather than the absolute level that competition assumes might explain this empirical puzzle. Thus, this paper studies Japanese antitrust exemptions for resale price maintenance and export cartel associations to illustrate how adopting vertical and horizontal restraints has allowed Japanese firms to substitute towards forms of non-price competition better tailored to industry characteristics.     

The Letters of John Sherman and the Origins of Antitrust

This paper presents a survey of the letters of Senator John Sherman, who pushed for passage of the first federal antitrust law in the United States. By placing these letters in historical context, this paper helps resolve a debate about Sherman's true intentions in creating an antitrust law. In particular, Sherman's letters reveal that he was more concerned with protecting the interests of small and inefficient businesses than with protecting the interests of consumers.     

GOVERNANCE AND VERTICAL INTEGRATION IN TEAM SPORTS

Antitrust law distinguishes vertical and horizontal restraints. A horizontal restraint is one which exists between competing firms supplying rival products in a market, and a vertical restraint is one which exists between firms that jointly contribute to supplying a particular product in a market. Horizontal agreements receive much closer antitrust scrutiny because they often enable firms to limit competition at the expense of consumers, while vertical restraints may be legal or illegal depending on whether they tend to enhance or reduce competition or the exploitation of market power. This paper argues that there are important vertical restraints that operate in sports leagues which have been mostly neglected in the literature but have a significant impact. We focus on intraleague restraints, where member clubs of a league agree to control the organization of league competition, and interleague restraints, where horizontal agreement such as the Reserve Clause relies on agreements not to compete for players competing in senior or junior leagues. ( JEL L83, L42, L44)     

WHAT PRICE THEORY CAN—AND CANNOT—DO FOR ANTITRUST

This paper examines the methodology and policy recommendations of Judge Robert Bork's writing on antitrust. It accepts as valid his premise that conventional price theory is the only appropriate organon for evaluating the welfare impact of an antitrust rule. However, it holds that in the analysis of cartels and mergers, Bork does not realize the full implications of his approach.
Of the many prohibitions which antitrust law now contains, Bork wants to retain only two-the prohibition of cartels and of large horizontal mergers. Even these two, however, cannot be maintained on pure price theory grounds. According to price theory, if price or merger agreements are inefficient, and i f entry and exit are free, then these agreements-like other inefficient practices-will be eroded by entry. Consistently applied, then, price the0 y provides no support for antitrust laws.
A lack of support on price theory grounds does not imply that antitrust laws are unjustified. Most practices prohibited by anti-trust law have closesubstitutes. Consequently, the law probably inflicts no great harm on economic efjiciency. Moreover, repeal of these laws could result in state-owned monopolies or economic planning, both of which would be far worse for economic efficiency.     

THE IMPACT OF ANTITRUST GUIDELINES ON BUSINESS

The dual antitrust goals of predictable law enforcement and accurate decisions in individual cases have been in conflict for decades. There are three dimensions to this conflict. First, there may be insufficient information on how the courts and enforcement agencies interpret the antitrust statutes. Second, the enforcement agencies may not use consistent standards to evaluate actual and potential antitrust cases. Third, antitrust guidelines may differ significantly from case law.
Unfortunately, attempts to improve one dimension of antitrust policy generally create conflicts elsewhere. Thus, the search for better antitrust decision making in individual cases has made antitrust counseling more complex and expensive. Over time, standards have evolved at different rates at the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the courts, and inconsistencies among these three decision-making bodies have further complicated the task of antitrust counseling. In this environment, improved and updated information on antitrust standards can potentially be very valuable to the business community.     

Vertical Relationships between Manufacturers and Retailers: Inference with Limited Data

In this paper, different models of vertical relationships between manufacturers and retailers in the supermarket industry are compared. Demand estimates are used to compute price-cost margins for retailers and manufacturers under different supply models when wholesale prices are not observed. The purpose is to identify the set of margins compatible with the margins obtained from estimates of cost and to select the model most consistent with the data among non-nested competing models. The models considered are (1) a simple linear pricing model; (2) a vertically integrated model; and (3) a variety of alternative (strategic) supply scenarios that allow for collusion, non-linear pricing, and strategic behaviour with respect to private label products. Using data on yogurt sold in several stores in a large urban area of the U.S. the results imply that wholesale prices are close to marginal cost and that retailers have pricing power in the vertical chain. This is consistent with non-linear pricing by the manufacturers or high bargaining power of the retailers.     

Modelling upstream and downstream market power in bilateral oligopoly

This article develops a general model that estimates market power exertion in a bilateral market relationship for processors and retailers where each may also have market power in their primary input market and output markets, respectively. Monte Carlo experiments are used to generate industry data for market structures such as perfect competition, monopoly, monopsony, bilateral imperfect competition with an integrated processor/retailer, bilateral imperfect competition with separate processor and retailer, and bilateral imperfect competition with four adjacent upstream and downstream markets. Then, new empirical industrial organization models are estimated using the data with models that match the market structure under which the data were generated (true) and with models that reflect alternative market structures (alternative). The general model is derived using the production function approach without imposing the fixed proportion assumption. Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that the general model is preferred to alternative models that presume competitive behaviour by processors in primary input procurement and by retailers in the output market. Results indicate that less flexible models lead to biased market power estimates in the presence of market power in the corresponding input and output markets.     

算法合谋的反垄断规制及工具创新研究

在数字经济领域,数字商务企业采用算法定价会明显提高合谋的可能性和可实施性,具有较大的价格合谋风险,因而成为反垄断法关注的重点。学理上,尚待明确的问题有:算法定价促进合谋的内在机理和类型化机制;如何创新反垄断执法体制以有效规制自主学习算法;在反垄断事后执法无效情况下,是否需要以及如何实行事前规制等。研究表明:算法合谋的反垄断规制宜坚持分类治理原则,采取事后反垄断禁止为主并辅之以事前规制的政策组合,反垄断政策工具创新应主要针对自主学习算法合谋。算法合谋反垄断规制政策需重新界定构成非法合谋的"协议"要件,明确当事企业的主体责任,重在采取以"软执法"为主的反垄断执法体制。事前规制政策应坚持"基于设计来遵守法律"的原则,强化算法审查机制和审查能力建设,并将提升算法透明度和可问责性作为重点。