IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ijecbs/v20y2013i3p325-340.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Countervailing Power and Input Pricing: When is a Waterbed Effect Likely?

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen P. King

Abstract

A downstream firm with countervailing power can extract a reduced price from an input supplier. A waterbed effect occurs if this price reduction leads the input supplier to raise the price that it charges another downstream firm. Policy makers have been concerned that this waterbed effect could undermine downstream competition and it was considered in detail in the 2008 UK grocery inquiry. This paper presents a simple but parsimonious model to investigate if and when a waterbed effect may arise. It shows that the effect may arise through optimal pricing behaviour, but that this critically depends on the nature of upstream technology, downstream competition and consumer demand. In particular, downstream competition tends to work against a waterbed effect, but convex upstream costs support the effect. The analysis is complementary to recent academic work on the waterbed effect that focuses on bargaining constraints .

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen P. King, 2013. "Countervailing Power and Input Pricing: When is a Waterbed Effect Likely?," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 325-340, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ijecbs:v:20:y:2013:i:3:p:325-340
    DOI: 10.1080/13571516.2013.835982
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13571516.2013.835982
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13571516.2013.835982?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adrian Majumdar, 2005. "Waterbed Effects and Buyer Mergers," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2005-07, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    2. Inderst, Roman & Wey, Christian, 2007. "Buyer power and supplier incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 647-667, April.
    3. Inderst, Roman & Wey, Christian, 2003. "Bargaining, Mergers, and Technology Choice in Bilaterally Oligopolistic Industries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(1), pages 1-19, Spring.
    4. Inderst, Roman, 2007. "Leveraging buyer power," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 908-924, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Stephen P. King, 2013. "Buyer Groups, Antitrust and Outsiders," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89(284), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Chris Doyle & Martijn Han, 2014. "Cartelization Through Buyer Groups," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(3), pages 255-275, May.
    3. Smith, Howard & Thanassoulis, John, 2012. "Upstream uncertainty and countervailing power," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 483-495.
    4. Harold Creusen & Arno Meijer & Gijsbert Zwart & Henry van der Wiel, 2008. "Static efficiency in Dutch supermarket chain," CPB Document 163, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Noriaki Matsushima & Shohei Yoshida, 2022. "The countervailing power hypothesis and contingent contracts," ISER Discussion Paper 1191, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    6. Emanuele Bacchiega & Olivier Bonroy & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2018. "Contract contingency in vertically related markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 772-791, October.
    7. Allain, Marie-Laure & Avignon, Rémi & Chambolle, Claire, 2020. "Purchasing alliances and product variety," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    8. David Mills, 2013. "Countervailing Power and Chain Stores," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(3), pages 281-295, May.
    9. João V. Montez, 2007. "Downstream mergers and producer's capacity choice: why bake a larger pie when getting a smaller slice?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 948-966, December.
    10. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Fumagalli, Chiara & Polo, Michele, 2007. "Buyer power and quality improvements," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 45-61, June.
    11. Vanessa von Schlippenbach & Isabel Teichmann, 2012. "The Strategic Use of Private Quality Standards in Food Supply Chains," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1189-1201.
    12. Pio Baake & Vanessa Schlippenbach, 2011. "Quality distortions in vertical relations," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 103(2), pages 149-169, June.
    13. Symeonidis, George, 2010. "Downstream merger and welfare in a bilateral oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 230-243, May.
    14. Claire Chambolle & Clémence Christin & Guy Meunier, 2015. "Optimal Production Channel for Private Labels: Too Much or Too Little Innovation?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 348-368, June.
    15. Johansen, Bjørn Olav, 2012. "The Buyer Power Of Multiproduct Retailers: Competition With One-Stop Shopping," Working Papers in Economics 03/12, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    16. Sara Fisher Ellison & Christopher M. Snyder, 2010. "Countervailing Power In Wholesale Pharmaceuticals," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 32-53, March.
    17. Patrice Bougette & Oliver Budzinski & Frédéric Marty, 2019. "Exploitative Abuse and Abuse of Economic Dependence: What Can We Learn From an Industrial Organization Approach?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 129(2), pages 261-286.
    18. Roman Inderst & Christian Wey, 2008. "Die Wettbewerbsanalyse von Nachfragemacht aus verhandlungstheoretischer Sicht," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(4), pages 465-485, November.
    19. Wang, Jingqi & Shin, Hyoduk & Zhou, Qin, 2021. "The optimal investment decision for an innovative supplier in a supply chain," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(3), pages 967-979.
    20. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Menicucci, Domenico, 2019. "On the unprofitability of buyer groups when sellers compete," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 265-288.

    More about this item

    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:taf:ijecbs:v:20:y:2013:i:3:p:325-340. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIJB20 .

    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.