I investigate how the burden of consumption taxes not borne by consumers is shared between upstream firms that produce a taxed good and downstream firms that sell the goods. Using novel data on monthly brand-level cigarette wholesale prices and retail prices from Nielsen homescan data, I find...

The paper investigates early stage “modern” grocery retail adoption in an emerging market using primary household level panel data on grocery purchases in India's largest city, Mumbai. Specifically, we seek insight on which socioeconomic class is more likely to adopt, and why. We model...

Did the rise in anti-American sentiment caused by the Iraq war affect sales of US goods abroad? We address this question using data on soft drink and fabric detergent sales in nine Arab countries. We find a statistically significant negative impact of the war on sales of US soft drinks in seven...

Recent years have witnessed an increased interest, by competition agencies, in assessing the competitive effects of partial acquisitions. We propose an empirical structural methodology, which can deal with settings involving all types of owners and ownership rights, to quantify the coordinated...

We analyze the initial conditions bias in the estimation of brand choice models with structural state dependence. Using a combination of Monte Carlo simulations and empirical case studies of shopping panels, we show that popular, simple solutions that mis-specify the initial conditions are...

This paper examines the effects of supermarket loyalty programs on the demand for private labels (PLs). Using transaction level data on grocery purchases and individual level information on the membership of loyalty programs, I estimate a model of demand in which membership may affect the...

How malleable is alcohol consumption? Specifically, how much is alcohol consumption driven by the current environment versus individual characteristics? To answer this question, we analyze changes in alcohol purchases when consumers move from one state to another in the United States. Right...

The milk addiction paradox refers to an empirical finding in which commodities that are typically considered to be non addictive, such as milk, appear instead to be addictive. This result seems more likely when there is persistence in consumption and when using aggregate data, and it suggests...

The repeal of the Prohibition Act in 1933 introduced state-level regulations on the retail availability of alcoholic beverages. Recently there has been much debate among industry stakeholders on how changes to these laws will affect consumer choices. We develop an index to measure purchase...

The milk addiction paradox refers to an empirical finding in which commodities that are typically considered to be non addictive, such as milk, appear instead to be addictive. This result seems more likely when there is persistence in consumption and when using aggregate data, and it suggests...