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...

Recent research in marketing has focused on cross-category variation in the market share of private label products, while recent work in the economics and industrial organization literature has focused on the determinants of firm price setting behavior. In this paper, the authors develop a...

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...

In this paper, we develop a framework for estimating market share and price reaction equations in an attempt to understand the nature of competitive interaction in the market for private label and branded grocery products. Specifically, we employ a Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System...

In contrast to single-equation cross-sectional studies of private label share, developing a complete understanding of the nature of the competitive interaction between national brands and private labels requires an understanding of the determinants of both demand and strategic pricing decisions...

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....

Formulating theoretical models inevitably requires various simplifications that assist in making analysis tractable and that facilitate deriving closed form solutions. While the strategic insights gained from theoretical models of market phenomena are often quite valuable, testing the...