This paper examines empirical issues of pricing and price dispersion within franchised restaurant and fast-food chains. Given the per se illegality of resale price maintenance (RPM) under current U.S. Antitrust laws, and the fact that franchised outlets are independent businesses under the law,...

We discuss recent research on the growth of chains in the retail and service sectors, and point out the role of franchising in these industries, using new data on franchising collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. We then discuss several topics that one can analyze with data on chains, and...

Franchisors simultaneously operate outlets under two distinct incentive schemes: franchising and company ownership. Using an extensive panel dataset, we show that experienced franchisors maintain a stable level of corporate ownership over time. However, the targeted rate of company ownership...