Market integration and market structure in the European soft drinks industry: always Coca-Cola?

This paper focuses on the question of European integration, considering whether the geographic level at which competition takes place differs across the two major segments of the soft drinks industry: carbonated soft drinks and mineral water. Our evidence shows firms are competing at the European level in both segments. Interestingly, the European market is being integrated through corporate strategy, defined as increased multinationality, rather than increased trade flows. To interpret these results, this paper uses the new theory of market structure where the essential notion is that in endogenous sunk cost industries such as soft drinks, the traditional inverse structure-size relation may break down, due to the escalation of overhead expenditures.