The three major infant formula manufacturers bid state by state to be the exclusive provider to poor families under the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, and all three compete for non-WIC customers at grocery stores. Previous studies explained the low WIC prices and the higher retail...

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...

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 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...

This article reviews the legal standards and the economics of indirect purchaser cases. Drawn from recent cases on behalf of consumers in the ADM price fixing case, it presents cost pass through models for high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), one of the alleged price fixes in the wet corn milling...