Antitrust economic analysis in food marketing channels: a global perspective

Antitrust enforcement concerning monopolies, mergers, and cartels is converging across all market‐oriented economies in the world. This convergence is based upon neoclassical economic analysis of industrial organization. The role of empirical economic analysis, however, has not converged as rapidly as the conceptual model because different countries have different enforcement institutions and strategies. This article explains how antitrust enforcement has evolved over time from public agencies to a market for enforcement that admits private parties. Private party law suits, and especially class action law suits on behalf of groups such as farmers and consumers, is a mechanism for redressing the often superior legal and economic resources that defendant corporations have and public agencies do not have. Enforcement and the role of empirical analysis are compared in the United States and other countries. Examples of enforcement from different countries illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. Finally, some insights explain how economists function in enforcement and the attributes required for success.     

Evaluating traditional share—Price and residual demand measures of market power in the catsup industry

In this paper we specify a price determination model which can test both the traditional positive interbrand price—share hypothesis and the negative intrabrand relationship predicted by residual demand analysis. We evaluate this relationship empirically using three-dimensional panel data from the catsup industry. We find support for both hypothesized relationships, and conclude that market power exists in this industry. Further, we conclude that the results depend critically on the characteristics of the data set to be analyzed.     

Market Share and Price Setting Behavior for Private Labels and National Brands

In this paper, we focus on the nature of demand and competitive response in the market for private label and national branded grocery products. Specifically,we employ less restrictive functional forms than usedin prior research. Specifically, we incorporateLA/AIDS demands and the corresponding price reactionequations to estimate consumer price sensitivities andsupply side price strategies for national brand andprivate label products. Oligopolistic priceinterdependence is explored further by specifyingbrand share, brand Herfindahl, and a measure of thestructure of the local retail markets in the supplyside relations to evaluate explicitly the impact ofmarket structure.In our empirical analysis, we estimate a system of market share and price equations simultaneously inorder to examine (i) the determinants of the demandresponse to pricing and promotion decisions and (ii)the determinants of private label and national brandpricing behavior. Using data for 143 food productcategories and 59 geographic markets, we develop amodel that captures the variation in privatelabel-national brand share and pricing acrosscategories and markets. Key findings include: (i)demand response to price and promotion is decidedlyasymmetric, (ii) price followship between privatelabels and national brands is positive, but notstrong, and (iii) markets characterized by highernational brand market share and higher supermarketconcentration tend to have higher prices forboth national brands and private labels.     

The influence of population characteristics on household response to a charity book collection based on pledges and social pressure

The success of a charitable campaign will depend on many factors, including solicitation technique, population characteristics, and type of charity. We implemented a randomised controlled trial to assess the effect of pledging and social pressure on the charitable donation behaviour of households. We implemented a charitable book collection in two different geographical areas, with one being more affluent, more ethnically diverse, and with higher levels of education. We received a marked variation in response: overall, across both treatment groups and control group, the number of households who donated books was higher in one area than the other. However, we did not find any evidence of a heterogeneous response to the pledge and social pressure interventions, compared to the control group.     

Antitrust analysis of supermarkets: global concerns playing out in local markets

This paper reviews the basic components of antitrust analysis for the supermarket industry, including definition of product and geographic markets and the measurement of market power. The analysis of prices and profits in a market structure context remains important, especially in countries such as Australia with very high supermarket concentration. Firm and brand level New Empirical Industrial Organisation models of demand and oligopoly pricing also provide insights for evaluating antitrust claims. Recent research on vertical pricing games and price transmission expand the analysis to market channel pricing issues, including coalescing power by supermarkets and food manufacturers. The issues and approaches explained in this paper are relevant for policy-orientated research on supermarkets worldwide, including Australia.     

An Econometric Analysis of Brand-Level Strategic Pricing Between Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo.

We investigate market structure and strategic pricing for leading brands sold by Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. in the context of a flexible demand specification (i.e., nonlinear AIDS) and structural price equations. Our flexible and generalized approach does not rely upon the often used ad hoc linear approximations to demand and profit-maximizing first-order conditions, and the assumption of Nash-Bertrand competition. We estimate a conjectural variation model and test for different brand-level pure strategy games. This approach of modeling market competition using the nonlinear Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) estimation method provides insights into the nature of imperfect competition and the extent of market power. We find no support for a Nash-Bertrand or Stackelberg Leadership equilibrium in the brand-level pricing game. Results also provide insights into the unique positioning of PepsiCo.'s Mountain Dew brand.     

Share,price and category expenditure—geographic market effects and private labels

Focusing on the interaction between national brands and private labels, this paper has two main empirical contributions: (i) a simultaneous system of demand (share), price and expenditure equations is estimated, and (ii) differences in the structure of the local geographic market are incorporated into the analysis. The former represents an important step in understanding the complete nature of private label and national brand interaction, while the latter is important for understanding the impact of the local retail environment on market behaviour. IRI scanner data from 1991 and 1992 are used to estimate a five‐equation system across 135 food product categories and 59 geographic markets. The results suggest that concentration at both the manufacturer and retailer level can significantly affect private label and national brand price. However, while increased retailer concentration is associated with higher national brand and private label prices, higher manufacturer concentration is associated with higher national brand but lower private label prices. Increases in national brand advertising has the effect of raising national brand price and share, but lowering private label price and share. This is consistent with previous research and suggests that advertising and local market conditions play a significant role in the ability of national brands to price at a premium over private labels. Finally, marketing decision variables, such as display activity and private label distribution, can have an important impact on total category expenditure. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategic pricing in a differentiated product oligopoly model: fluid milk in Boston

In an imperfectly competitive industry, differentiated products compete with each other with price rather than quantity as the strategic variable. Several previous studies have employed a generalized Nash–Bertrand model: Liang (1989) , Cotterill (1994) , Cotterill et al. (2000) , and Kinoshita et al. (2002) ; however, only Liang has explored the theoretical foundations of that model. This article generalizes the Liang two‐good model to three goods. A surprising and important result follows. Price‐conjectural variations do not exist in models with three or more goods. Price‐reaction functions, however, exist in multiple‐good models. We estimate them jointly with a brand‐level demand system to evaluate the total impact of a brand manager's price change on own quantity. In a differentiated product market, this is a useful addition to a partial demand elasticity approach, because a change in one brand's price typically engenders a price reaction by other brands that affects own quantity via substantial cross‐price elasticities among substitutes. Strategic pricing in the Boston fluid milk market was also influenced by the existence of a raw milk price support program, the Northeast Dairy Compact. We find that the advent of the Compact was a focal point event that crystallized a shift away from Nash–Bertrand to more cooperative pricing. If the downstream market is not competitive, one needs to consider strategic price reactions when designing and evaluating agricultural price programs.