This paper studies shopping hour decisions by retail chains and independent competitors. We use a Salop-type model where retailers compete in prices and shopping hours. Our results depend significantly on efficiency differences between retail chain and independent retailer. If the efficiency...

This paper analyzes the determinants of pass-through that are specific to vertical relationships between wholesalers and retailers. Fluctuations in input costs (due to, e.g., exchange rate shocks) are transmitted first to the wholesale price, and then to the retail price. The type of vertical...

This paper investigates the effects of changes in retail market concentration when input prices are negotiated. Results are derived from a model of bilateral Nash-bargaining between upstream and downstream firms which allows for general forms of demand and retail competition. Whether...

We investigate whether online travel agents (OTAs) assign hotels worse positions in their search results if these set lower hotel prices at other OTAs or on their own websites. We formally characterize how an OTA can use such a strategy to reduce price differentiation across distribution...

Unlike most retrospective merger studies that only focus on price effects, we also estimate the impact of a merger on product variety. We use an original dataset on Dutch supermarkets to assess the effect of a merger that was conditionally approved by the Dutch Competition Authority (ACM) on...

We investigate the effects of passive backward acquisitions in their efficient upstream supplier on downstream firms' ability to collude in a dynamic game of price competition with homogeneous goods. We find that passive backward acquisitions impede downstream collusion. The main driver of our...

This paper studies the relationship between retail gasoline pricing strategies and potential demand. Utilising detailed data on traffic on the German Autobahn and the special case of Bundesautobahntankstellen, the interaction between demand and price competition is studied, as are the changes in...

We study the effect of entry on the price distribution in the German retail gasoline market. Exploiting more than 700 entries over five years in an event study design, we find that entry causes a persistent first-order stochastic shift in the price distribution. Prices at the top of the...

While many companies use algorithms to optimize their pricing, additional human oversight and price interventions are widespread. Human intervention can correct algorithmic flaws and introduce private information into the pricing process, but it may also be based on less sophisticated pricing...

Large retailers, competing with smaller stores that carry a narrower range, can exercise market power by pricing below cost some of their products. Below-cost pricing arises as an exploitative device rather than a predatory device (e.g., Chen and Rey, 2012). Unlike standard textbook models, we...