This paper develops an analysis of markets for differentiated products. It relies on the concept of latent separability for consumer preferences. As proposed by Blundell and Robin, latent separability assumes that purchased products are allocated in the production of latent intermediate...

This paper reviews the basic components of antitrust analysis for the supermarket industry, including definition of product and geographic markets and the measurement of market power. The analysis of prices and profits in a market structure context remains important, especially in countries such...

This paper reviews theories that identify motives for mergers, reviews recent empirical research, specifies a model that incorporates alternative motives, and tests the model with data from food manufacturing mergers between 1979 and 1986. Results suggest that capital markets are not efficient,...

An analysis of the impact of buyer structure on the profitability of U.S. food manufacturing industries shows inconclusive evidence in support of the countervailing power hypothesis in these industries. However, findings show that industries that have high sales to other food manufacturing...

This study was provided to the staff at the Federal Trade Commission in October, 1999. It expands the analysis of divestitures that was presented in an April 1999 report to the FTC (An Antitrust Economic Analysis of the Proposed Acquisition of Supermarkets General Holdings Corporation by Ahold...

De novo entry by the top 20 U.S. supermarket chains into local markets is examined using Tobit analysis. We find that entry is related to potential entrants' proximity to the local market, market growth, concentration, the number of large chains that are incumbents in the local market, and the...