IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/bergec/2012_002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Private Labels, Rent Shifting And Consumer Welfare

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper investigates a retailer's decision to introduce a private label and asks how the retailer's access to a private label may affect the pricing of substitute national brands. We consider a model with two vertically differentiated national brand manufacturers that negotiate sequentially with a monopolist retailer over two-part tariffs. We find that when the retailer decides to introduce a private label, this generates a price increase for one of the two national brands. Moreover, when we endogenise the order of negotiations, we find that i) the retailer?s private label is always introduced, and ii) the private label always causes a price increase for the high-quality national brand only. In our model, this price increase does not occur due to a price discrimination effect, as in Gabrielsen and Sørgard (2007) ["Private labels, price rivalry, and public policy", European Economic Review, (51), 403-424], but as a result of a rent-shifting effect. The welfare implications of private label introduction are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Johansen, Bjørn Olav, 2012. "Private Labels, Rent Shifting And Consumer Welfare," Working Papers in Economics 02/12, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:bergec:2012_002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ekstern.filer.uib.no/svf/2012/WP.02.12.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1998. "Exclusive Dealing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 64-103, February.
    2. Bontemps Christophe & Orozco Valerie & Réquillart Vincent & Trevisiol Audrey, 2005. "Price Effects of Private Label Development," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, February.
    3. Michael B. Ward & Jay P. Shimshack & Jeffrey M. Perloff & J. Michael Harris, 2002. "Effects of the Private-Label Invasion in Food Industries," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(4), pages 961-973.
    4. Bontems, Philippe & Monier-Dilhan, Sylvette & Requillart, Vincent, 1999. "Strategic Effects of Private Labels," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 26(2), pages 147-165, June.
    5. Christophe Bontemps & Valérie Orozco & Vincent Réquillart, 2008. "Private Labels, National Brands and Food Prices," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(1), pages 1-22, August.
    6. Aghion, Philippe & Bolton, Patrick, 1987. "Contracts as a Barrier to Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 388-401, June.
    7. Gabrielsen, Tommy Staahl & Sorgard, Lars, 2007. "Private labels, price rivalry, and public policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 403-424, February.
    8. Daniel P. O'Brien & Greg Shaffer, 1997. "Nonlinear Supply Contracts, Exclusive Dealing, and Equilibrium Market Foreclosure," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(4), pages 755-785, December.
    9. Mills, David E, 1995. "Why Retailers Sell Private Labels," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 509-528, Fall.
    10. Fiona Scott Morton & Florian Zettelmeyer, 2004. "The Strategic Positioning of Store Brands in Retailer--Manufacturer Negotiations," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 24(2), pages 161-194, March.
    11. Mills, David E, 1999. "Private Labels and Manufacturer Counterstrategies," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 26(2), pages 125-145, June.
    12. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    13. Chi-Cheng Wu & Chih-Jen Wang, 2005. "A Positive Theory of Private Label: A Strategic Role of Private Label in a Duopoly National-Brand Market," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 143-161, April.
    14. Fabian Bergès-Sennou, 2006. "Store loyalty, bargaining power and the private label production issue," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 33(3), pages 315-335, September.
    15. Leslie M. Marx & Greg Shaffer, 1999. "Predatory Accommodation: Below-Cost Pricing without Exclusion in Intermediate Goods Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(1), pages 22-43, Spring.
    16. Sullivan, Mary W, 1997. "Slotting Allowances and the Market for New Products," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 461-493, October.
    17. Narasimhan, Chakravarthi & Wilcox, Ronald T, 1998. "Private Labels and the Channel Relationship: A Cross-Category Analysis," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(4), pages 573-600, October.
    18. Marx, Leslie M. & Shaffer, Greg, 2007. "Rent shifting and the order of negotiations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 1109-1125, October.
    19. André Bonfrer & Pradeep K. Chintagunta, 2004. "Store Brands: Who Buys Them and What Happens to Retail Prices When They Are Introduced?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 24(2), pages 195-218, March.
    20. Bergès-Sennou Fabian & Bontems Philippe & Réquillart Vincent, 2004. "Economics of Private Labels: A Survey of Literature," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-25, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul W. Dobson & Ratula Chakraborty, 2014. "How Do National Brands And Store Brands Compete?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2014-07, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gabrielsen, Tommy Staahl & Sorgard, Lars, 2007. "Private labels, price rivalry, and public policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 403-424, February.
    2. Richards, Timothy J. & Hamilton, Stephen F. & Patterson, Paul M., 2010. "Spatial Competition and Private Labels," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 35(2), pages 1-26, August.
    3. Venturini, Luciano, 2006. "Vertical competition between manufacturers and retailers and upstream incentives to innovate and differentiate," 98th Seminar, June 29-July 2, 2006, Chania, Crete, Greece 10050, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Fabian Bergès & Zohra Bouamra-Mechemache, 2012. "Is producing a private label counterproductive for a branded manufacturer?," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 39(2), pages 213-239, April.
    5. Sckokai, Paolo & Soregaroli, Claudio, 2006. "Do consumers benefit from private label development?," 98th Seminar, June 29-July 2, 2006, Chania, Crete, Greece 10068, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Wu, Lifang & Yang, Wei & Wu, Jessica, 2021. "Private label management: A literature review," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 368-384.
    7. Bontemps, Christophe & Orozco, Valerie & Requillart, Vincent, 2005. "Confirming the Price Effects of Private Labels Development," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24735, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Cheng, Rong & Duan, Yongrui & Zhang, Jianguang & Ke, Hua, 2021. "Impacts of store-brand introduction on a multiple-echelon supply chain," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(2), pages 652-662.
    9. Raj Sethuraman, 2009. "Assessing the External Validity of Analytical Results from National Brand and Store Brand Competition Models," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 759-781, 07-08.
    10. Johannes Paha, 2017. "Wholesale Pricing with Incomplete Information about Private Label Products," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201736, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    11. Fabian Bergès & Philippe Bontems & Vincent Réquillart, 2009. "L'impact économique du développement des marques de distributeurs," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(3), pages 41-56.
    12. Bonanno Alessandro & Lopez Rigoberto A., 2005. "Private Label Expansion and Supermarket Milk Prices," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, February.
    13. Christophe Bontemps & Valérie Orozco & Vincent Réquillart, 2008. "Private Labels, National Brands and Food Prices," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(1), pages 1-22, August.
    14. Sckokai, Paolo & Soregaroli, Claudio, 2008. "Impact of private label development across retail formats: Evidences from the Italian dairy market," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement (RAEStud), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 87(2).
    15. Sheldon, Ian M., 2017. "The Competitiveness Of Agricultural Product And Input Markets: A Review And Synthesis Of Recent Research," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 1-44, February.
    16. José J. Sempere Monerris & Rafael Moner Colonques & Amparo Urbano, 2007. "Store Vs. National Brands: A Product Line Mix Puzzle," Working Papers. Serie AD 2007-10, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    17. Weimin Ma & Rong Cheng & Hua Ke, 2018. "Impacts of Power Structure on Supply Chain with a Store Brand," Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (APJOR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 35(04), pages 1-25, August.
    18. Irz, Xavier & Mazzocchi, Mario & Réquillart, Vincent & Soler, Louis-Georges, 2015. "Research in Food Economics: past trends and new challenges," Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, Editions NecPlus, vol. 96(01), pages 187-237, March.
    19. Zhiqi Chen & Heng Xu, 2021. "Private labels and product quality under asymmetric information," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 743-759, November.
    20. Steve McCorriston, 2002. "Why should imperfect competition matter to agricultural economists?," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 29(3), pages 349-371, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    private labels; national brands; rent shifting; public policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
    • L42 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Vertical Restraints; Resale Price Maintenance; Quantity Discounts

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:bergec:2012_002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kjell Erik Lommerud (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iouibno.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.