Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006, 20 December 2006, requires functional foods manufacturers operating in Europe to provide evidence that the health claims reported on the packaging are truthful. However, most applications reviewed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have been rejected,...

Wal-Mart, the largest retailer worldwide, has been suspected of exercising market power over input providers, both merchandise suppliers and workers. However, in spite of a growing body of literature investigating the beneficialeconomic impact of the company through its price-lowering effect,...

Despite the significant interest shown by academics as to investigating the market of functionalfoods, little empirical research has used market data to infer on the characteristics of functional foods’consumers via demand analysis. Using a discrete choice (nested-logit) model and scanner data...

This study presents three essays on the evolving competitive environment characterizing the modern retailing industry: (1) the impact of the scope of supermarket services on food prices and demand; (2) the impact of Wal-Mart on retail wages and workers; and (3) the expansion strategy of...

The objective of this article is to provide an overview on constraints and opportunities for increased vegetable trade in the Americas. The realization of this potential will likely be constrained by the extent of the market, immigration reform in the United States, lack of investment capital in...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the vertical relationship between the manufacturers of ready-to-eat cereals (RTEC) and the retailers in the Boston area. The study uses highly disaggregated (supermarket and brand level ) monthly data from Information Resources Inc (IRI) from 1995 to...

This paper applies the BLP approach to the demand for ready-to-eat cereals (RTECs) at the supermarket-chain level in Boston using IRI monthly data. The Random Coefficient Model is used to estimate the demand for 37 brands of RTECs at the leading supermarkets in the Boston area. The empirical...

The increasing importance of services in industrialized economies is reflected in the relative importanceof service in product offerings at the retail level. Yet, typical economic studies accountonly for physical product attributes in models of product differentiation even when conductedwith...

This article extends the Berry, Levinsohn, Pakes (1995) model to include retail services by Boston supermarkets in an equilibrium model of breakfast cereals and then tests alternative vertical pricing games between manufacturers and supermarkets to ascertain who’s got the pricing power....

We apply the Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes (1995) market equilibrium model (BLP) to data from 30 brands of beers sold in 12 U.S. cities over 20 quarters (1988-92) to estimate the consumers’ taste for beer characteristics (price, alcohol content, and calories) as well as for the cultural region of...