The analysis of mergers in industries with differentiated products has traditionally focused its attention on postmerger price changes, ignoring the effect of a new competitive landscape on the characteristics of the products firms choose to offer. This paper proposes a new analysis, which...

Models of firm conduct are the cornerstone of both theoretical and empirical work in industrial organization. A recent contribution (Berry and Haile, 2014) has suggested the use of exclusion restrictions to test alternative conduct models. We propose a pairwise testing procedure based on this...

This study builds on a theory-consistent demand system, namely the Almost Ideal Demand System, utilizing the Nielsen Homescan Panel data on household purchases, and models potential effects of coupons on market shares of related ready-to-eat breakfast cereal brands. The results emerging from...

The Indian retail industry was estimated at USD 520 Billion in 2013 and projected to grow at a rate of 13% and will have a market size of USD 950 billion by 2018 (E&Y, 2014). Retail sector has become competitive with the emergence of organized retail players. Currently retailers are focusing on...

Product differentiation is well established as being the key source of the cereal industry's high price-cost margins. However, there is little consensus as to whether pricing collusion is also a source of profitability, and indeed, whether price even serves as a strategic variable in this...

Like any new product, private label entry increases competition within a category leading to downward pressure on both wholesale and retail prices. But, given the higher margins for private labels and potential bargaining benefits for retailers, they have incentives to help private labels gain...

This study identifies the determinants of coupon values at the brand level within the context of a complex marketing program. A two-equation, fixed-effects, panel-data model accounts for the bidirectional causality between brand prices and discount levels. The empirical model is fitted with data...

The ready-to-eat cereal industry is characterized by high concentration margins, large advertising to sales ratios, and numerous introductions of new products. Previous researchers have concluded that the ready-to-eat cereal industry is a classic example of an industry with nearly collusive...

New Empirical Evidence on Price Setting and Consumer Behaviour in the Retailing Sector. There are two objectives of this article: (i) It is discussed theoretically how the dynamics of pricing decisions of multiproduct retailers can be explained. (ii) It is analyzed empirically by use of scanner...

The Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) market equilibrium model is extended to the supermarket chain level to examine consumer choices and retail competition for thirty-seven brands of breakfast cereals in Boston. Estimated taste parameters for product characteristics vary significantly across...

We explore the relationship between shelf prices and manufacturers' coupons for 25 ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. We find that shelf prices are lower during periods when coupons are available. This result is inconsistent with static monopoly price discrimination under a broad range of...

Traditional merger analysis, based on market definition and use of concentration measures to infer potential anti-competitive effects, is problematic and difficult to implement when evaluating mergers in industries with differentiated products. This paper discusses an alternative, which consists...

This paper explores the relationship between shelf prices and manufacturers' coupons for 25 ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. Contrary to the predictions of static monopoly price discrimination, we find the shelf prices for a particular brand in a particular city are generally lower during periods...

This paper explores the relationship between shelf prices and manufacturers' coupons for 25 ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. Contrary to the predictions of static monopoly price discrimination, we find the shelf prices for a particular brand in a particular city are generally lower during periods...

This paper examines the view that the ready-to-eat cereal industry is a classic example of an industry with nearly collusive pricing behavior and intense non-price competition. In particular, I estimate price-cost margins and separate these margins into three sources: (1) that which is due to...

The ready-to-eat cereal industry is characterized by high concentration margins, large advertising to sales ratios, and numerous introductions of new products. Previous researchers have concluded that the ready-to-eat cereal industry is a classic example of an industry with nearly collusive...

This paper analyses the consequences of advertising in the children's breakfast cereal market. I take advantage of the fact that advertising directed at children is prohibited in the Canadian province of Quebec to examine the nature of advertising, and to determine whether the restriction...

We propose a structural approach to measuring brand value in an equilibrium framework using observational data. Brand value is defined as the difference in equilibrium profit between the brand in question and its counterfactual unbranded equivalent on search attributes. Our structural model...