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The Evolving Food Chain: Competitive Effects of Wal-Mart's Entry into the Supermarket Industry

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Author Info
Emek Basker
Michael Noel

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Abstract

"We analyze the effect of Wal-Mart's entry into the grocery market using a unique store-level price panel data set. We use ordinary least squares and two instrumental-variables specifications to estimate the effect of Wal-Mart's entry on competitors' prices of 24 grocery items across several categories. Wal-Mart's price advantage over competitors for these products averages approximately 10%. On average, competitors' response to entry by a Wal-Mart Supercenter is a price reduction of 1-1.2%, mostly due to smaller-scale competitors; the response of the "Big Three" supermarket chains (Albertson's, Safeway, and Kroger) is less than half that size. Low-end grocery stores, which compete more directly with Wal-Mart, cut their prices more than twice as much as higher-end stores. We confirm our results using a falsification exercise, in which we test for Wal-Mart's effect on prices of services that it does not provide, such as movie tickets and dry-cleaning services." Copyright (c) 2009, The Author(s) Journal Compilation (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc..

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Blackwell Publishing in its journal Journal of Economics & Management Strategy.

Volume (Year): 18 (2009)
Issue (Month): 4 (December)
Pages: 977-1009
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Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:18:y:2009:i:4:p:977-1009

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Jerry Hausman & Ephraim Leibtag, 2004. "CPI Bias from Supercenters: Does the BLS Know that Wal-Mart Exists?," NBER Working Papers 10712, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Judith A. Chevalier & Anil K Kashyap & Peter E. Rossi, 2003. "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 15-37, March. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Parsley, David C & Wei, Shang-Jin, 1996. "Convergence to the Law of One Price without Trade Barriers or Currency Fluctuations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(4), pages 1211-36, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Levy, Daniel, et al, 1997. "The Magnitude of Menu Costs: Direct Evidence from Large U.S. Supermarket Chains," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(3), pages 791-825, August.
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  5. Thomas J. Holmes, 2006. "The Diffusion of Wal-Mart and Economies of Density," 2006 Meeting Papers 15, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  6. Ting Zhu & Vishal Singh & Anthony J. Dukes, 2005. "Local Competition and Impact of Entry by a Dominant Retailer," CIE Discussion Papers 2005-05, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Industrial Economics. [Downloadable!]
  7. Frankel, David M. & Gould, Eric D., 2001. "The Retail Price of Inequality," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 219-239, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Thomas J. Holmes, 2008. "The Diffusion of Wal-Mart and Economies of Density," NBER Working Papers 13783, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Emek Basker & Shawn Klimek & Pham Hoang Van, 2008. "Supersize It: The Growth of Retail Chains and the Rise of the "Big Box" Retail Format," Working Papers 0809, Department of Economics, University of Missouri. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Bonanno, Alessandro & Lopez, Rigoberto A., 2008. "Wal-Mart’s Monopsony Power in Local Labor Markets," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6219, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). [Downloadable!]
  3. Emek Basker, 2008. "Does Wal-Mart Sell Inferior Goods?," Working Papers 0805, Department of Economics, University of Missouri. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-12-19.

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