This article separates oligopoly-power and cost-efficiency effects of changes in industrial concentration and assesses their impact on output prices in 32 food-processing industries. Empirical results indicate that although concentration induces cost efficiency in one-third of the industries,...

Focusing on the interaction between national brands and private labels, this paper has two main empirical contributions: i) a simultaneous system of demand (share), price and expenditure equations is estimated, and ii) differences in the structure of the local geographic market are incorporated...

Despite considerable debate as to Wal-Mart’s impact on retail workers, to date there has been little structural analysis on the topic. This paper measures and tests for Wal-Mart’s monopsony power in local labor markets using a dominant-firm model and data on contiguous U.S. counties where...

This paper separates market power and efficiency effects of concentration in a sample of 255 U.S. manufacturing industries and computes welfare changes from rises in concentration. The empirical findings reveal that in nearly two-third of the cases, consumers lose as efficiency gains are...

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 develops a two-stage market channel model to analyze pricing in the Boston milk market where retailers are differentiated sellers. A nonlinear model of demand and costs, including firm specific and industry cost shift variables is estimated for each of the four leading supermarkets....