We study the cyclical properties of sales, regular price changes, and average prices paid by consumers ("effective" prices) using data on prices and quantities sold for numerous retailers across many US metropolitan areas. Inflation in the effective prices paid by consumers declines...

To investigate whether secondary markets aid or harm durable goods manufacturers, we build a dynamic model of durable goods oligopoly with transaction costs in the secondary market. Calibrating model parameters using data from the US automobile industry, we find the net effect of opening the...

Resale price maintenance (RPM), slotting fees, loyalty rebates, and other related vertical practices can allow an incumbent manufacturer to transfer profits to retailers. If these retailers were to accommodate entry, upstream competition could lead to lower industry profits and the breakdown of...

We model retail-price recommendations (RPRs) as a communication device in vertical supply relations with private manufacturer information on production costs and consumer demand. With static trade, RPRs are irrelevant, and the equilibrium outcome is inefficient. With repeated trade, RPRs can...

We estimate a spatial model of liquor demand to analyze the impact of government-controlled retailing on entry patterns. In the absence of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, the state would have roughly 2.5 times the current number of stores, higher consumer surplus, and lower payments to...

We show that large retailers, competing with smaller stores that carry a narrower range, can exercise market power by pricing below cost some of the products also offered by the smaller rivals, in order to discriminate multistop shoppers from one-stop shoppers. Loss leading thus appears as an...

I examine excise taxes levied on multiproduct retailers. Excise taxes reduce equilibrium output and decrease equilibrium product variety in the short run, but taxes can raise output per product in the long run and induce entry. Excise taxes are overshifted into prices in a wide range of cases,...