Beef packing has become an extremely concentrated industry, yet studies have found that little, if any, market power exists. We propose and test alternative measures of behavior that may better describe how packers control purchases from feedlots, using confidential data collected by the USDA...

Nonbinding recommendations, such as provided by fact-finders, are shown to significantly increase voluntary settlements in bargaining. Theoretically, it is unclear whether recommendations will increase settlement rates. A recommendation may reduce outcome uncertainty, thereby "chilling"...

This paper incorporates inventory dynamics into a standard conjectural variations analysis of market power. Using a model which incorporates closed-loop equilibrium strategies, we show that measures of market power that ignore inventory dynamics are biased. We then apply the model to the...

Single-plant firms choose quantity/quality levels to maximize profits. Multi-plant firms face this decision and must also choose how many decision makers to have. This article presents two case studies and a model of a multi-plant firm in which overhead costs are lower with one decision maker...

Concentration in beef packing has risen dramatically in the past 25 years. We develop measures used to describe feedlot-packer relations: (1) a statistic based on the proportion of its sales a feedlot makes to a given packer, and (2) a measure of the switching behavior of feedlots. The measures...

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