This paper inquires into the tendency of German food retailers to market organic products as private-label products (PLs). After a review of the literature, we present preliminary results of a survey of retailers and processors. 62.5 % of the interviewed processors produce organic PL. Retailers...

We analyze the incentives to collude when brand manufacturers compete with a private label producer of inferior quality. Full collusion is easier to sustain than partial collusion from the brands.perspective when horizontal differentiation is large and vertical differentiation is small. The...

In this paper we investigate the size of markups for nationally branded products sold in the U.S. retail grocery industry. Using scanner data from a large Midwestern supermarket chain, we compute several measures of upper and lower bounds on markup ratios for over 230 nationally branded products...

We document the emergence of a disconnect between mortgage and Treasury interest rates in the summer of 2003. Following the end of the Federal Reserve expansionary cycle in June 2003, mortgage rates failed to rise according to their historical relationship with Treasury yields, leading to...

Using weekly retail transaction scanner price data from a large US supermarket chain, significantly higher retail price rigidity is found for private label products than for nationally branded products during the Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday periods relative to the rest of the year. The...

We document the emergence of a disconnect between mortgage and Treasury interest rates in the summer of 2003. Following the end of the Federal Reserve's expansionary cycle in June 2003, mortgage rates failed to rise according to their historical relationship with Treasury yields, leading to...

In Europe, food retailing has become more concentrated and private label goods have spread over the last 40 years. They are now a key element of retailers' shelf offer. Using a model in which consumers become informed about the good's quality only in period two, we examine what determines the...

We use a two-stage, sample selection model to investigate organic milk purchases using Neilsen’s Homescan data. In the first stage, households decide on a weekly basis to buy mainly organic milk or non-organic milk. Results from this stage show that higher income, better education, having...

In the European food sector private labels represent a relevant and increasing share of total sales. Thus,national brands need to adapt their marketing strategies to deal with this growing competition. Focusing on pricestrategies, recent theoretical papers conclude that private label development...

This three-essay thesis focuses on how value of the brand, i.e. brand equity is created, with each study investigating different parts of the relationships within the brand value chain.My first essay identifies and tests a new set of brand equity drivers such as brand structure and positioning,...