Market Power in the Carbonated Soft Drink Industry

We investigate the strategic pricing for leading brands sold in the carbonated soft drink (CSD) market in the context of a flexible demand specification (i.e. random parameter nested logit) and a structural pricing equation. Our approach does not rely upon the often used ad hoc linear approximations to demand and profit-maximizing first-order conditions. We estimate the structural pricing equation using four different estimators (i.e. OLS, LIML, 2SLS, and GMM) and compare the implied deviation from Bertrand-Nash competition. Our results suggest that retailers, on average, price CSD brands below their cost, likely a result of the competitive retailing environment. We also find CSD wholesalers price their brands significantly more cooperatively than Bertrand-Nash would suggest, thus inflating profits.