This paper attempts to broaden our understanding of retail pricing dynamics by providing some systematic evidence about U.S. grocery prices. Using a large data set containing prices on twenty categories of goods from thirty U.S. metro areas for the period 1988–1997, we find a number of...

This paper develops a model of competition among multiproduct retailers that is consistent with observed pricing regularities, e.g., virtually all products have large mass points in their price distributions and most deviations fall below the mass point. The basis of the model is that, because...

This study estimates the price effects of horizontal mergers in the U.S. grocery retailing industry. We examine fourteen regions affected by mergers including both highly concentrated and relatively unconcentrated markets. We identify price effects by comparing markets affected by mergers to...

This paper measures market dynamics within the U.S. grocery industry (defined as supermarket, supercenter and club retailers). We find that the composition of outlets changes substantially, roughly 7%, each year, and that store sizes have increased as the result of growth by supercenter and club...