We estimate the effects of new brands on market competition and consumer welfare in the U.S. processed cheese market. We find that an observed increase in consumer welfare was attributable mainly to an increase in the number of brands in the sample market, while the price effect, which measures...

This paper employs a nation-wide sample of supermarket scanner data to estimate a large brandlevel demand system for beer in the U.S. Unlike previous studies, this work estimates the ownand cross-advertising elasticities in addition to price elasticities. The dimensionality problem is solved...

Pricing behavior of firms in differentiated product markets has been studied intensely in recent empirical work. Despite several accounts in various industries, price leadership has remained mostly unassessed. This study analyzes price competition in the U.S. brewing industry with a focus on...

This article explores the issue of price and expenditure endogeneity in empirical demand analysis. The analysis focuses on the US carbonated soft drink market. We test the null hypothesis that price and expenditures are exogenous in the demand for carbonated soft drinks. Using an Almost Ideal...

This study was provided to the staff at the Federal Trade Commission in October, 1999. It expands the analysis of divestitures that was presented in an April 1999 report to the FTC (An Antitrust Economic Analysis of the Proposed Acquisition of Supermarkets General Holdings Corporation by Ahold...

This paper provides an overview of recent research on estimating competitive interaction in food product categories. In particular, the focus of this review is on research using scanner data conducted at the disaggregate (e.g., store, chain or local market) level, including empirical studies of...

This article decomposes the impact of imports on domestic price-cost margins into separate price and cost effects. Using data from 24 food-processing industries, the empirical results show that although the direct impact of imports on prices is always negative, a positive net impact on...

This report analyzes the economic impact of price fixing in the wet corn milling industry on consumers in the State of Michigan. Two of the companies who produce citric acid have pleaded guilty to fixing its price. In this report we assume that price fixing also occurred among HFCS producers....

A quantity surcharge exists when the unit cost of a given brand is higher for a large-size package than for a smaller one. This paper examines some product and household characteristics that influence observed quantity surcharging practices. Results indicate that the propensity to buy a...