IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/cemmap/32-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Empirical analysis of countervailing power in business-to-business bargaining

Author

Listed:
  • Walter Beckert

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Birkbeck, University of London)

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive econometric framework for the empirical analysis of countervailing power. It encompasses the two main features of pricing schemes in business-to-business relationships: nonlinear price schedules and bargaining over rents. Disentangling them is critical to the empirical identification of countervailing power. Testable predictions from the theoretical analysis for a pragmatic reduced form empirical pricing model are delineated. This model is readily implementable on the basis of transaction data, routinely collected by antitrust authorities and illustrated using data from the UK brick industry. The paper emphasizes the importance of controlling for endogeneity of volumes and established supply chains and for heterogeneity across buyers and sellers due to intrinsically unobservable outside options.

Suggested Citation

  • Walter Beckert, 2011. "Empirical analysis of countervailing power in business-to-business bargaining," CeMMAP working papers CWP32/11, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
  • Handle: RePEc:ifs:cemmap:32/11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cemmap.ifs.org.uk/wps/cwp3211.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michaela Draganska & Daniel Klapper & Sofia B. Villas-Boas, 2010. "A Larger Slice or a Larger Pie? An Empirical Investigation of Bargaining Power in the Distribution Channel," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 57-74, 01-02.
    2. Steven Salop & Joseph Stiglitz, 1977. "Bargains and Ripoffs: A Model of Monopolistically Competitive Price Dispersion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 493-510.
    3. Bonnet, Céline & Dubois, Pierre, 2010. "Non Linear Contracting and Endogenous Buyer Power between Manufacturers and Retailers: Empirical Evidence on Food Retailing in France," IDEI Working Papers 638, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    4. Ivar Ekeland & James J. Heckman & Lars Nesheim, 2004. "Identification and Estimation of Hedonic Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 60-109, February.
    5. Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson, 2007. "Cementing Relationships: Vertical Integration, Foreclosure, Productivity, and Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 250-301.
    6. Salop, S & Stiglitz, J E, 1982. "The Theory of Sales: A Simple Model of Equilibrium Price Dispersion with Identical Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1121-1130, December.
    7. Gregory S. Crawford & Ali Yurukoglu, 2012. "The Welfare Effects of Bundling in Multichannel Television Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 643-685, April.
    8. 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.
    9. William Boulding & Richard Staelin, 1990. "Environment, Market Share, and Market Power," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(10), pages 1160-1177, October.
    10. Lustgarten, Steven H, 1975. "The Impact of Buyer Concentration in Manufacturing Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 57(2), pages 125-132, May.
    11. Hart, Sergiu & Mas-Colell, Andreu, 1989. "Potential, Value, and Consistency," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 589-614, May.
    12. Henrick Horn & Asher Wolinsky, 1988. "Bilateral Monopolies and Incentives for Merger," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(3), pages 408-419, Autumn.
    13. Nathan H. Miller & Matthew Osborne, 2014. "Spatial differentiation and price discrimination in the cement industry: evidence from a structural model," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(2), pages 221-247, June.
    14. Katz, Michael L, 1987. "The Welfare Effects of Third-Degree Price Discrimination in," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 154-167, March.
    15. Chad Syverson, 2007. "Prices, Spatial Competition And Heterogeneous Producers: An Empirical Test," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 197-222, June.
    16. Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Vives, Xavier, 1988. "On the Strategic Choice of Spatial Price Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 122-137, March.
    17. Tasneem Chipty & Christopher M. Snyder, 1999. "The Role Of Firm Size In Bilateral Bargaining: A Study Of The Cable Television Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 326-340, May.
    18. Dobson, Paul W & Waterson, Michael, 1997. "Countervailing Power and Consumer Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(441), pages 418-430, March.
    19. Reiss, Peter C. & Wolak, Frank A., 2007. "Structural Econometric Modeling: Rationales and Examples from Industrial Organization," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 64, Elsevier.
    20. Lars A. Stole & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 1996. "Intra-firm Bargaining under Non-binding Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(3), pages 375-410.
    21. Céline Bonnet & Pierre Dubois, 2010. "Inference on vertical contracts between manufacturers and retailers allowing for nonlinear pricing and resale price maintenance," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 139-164, March.
    22. Matthew Grennan, 2013. "Price Discrimination and Bargaining: Empirical Evidence from Medical Devices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 145-177, February.
    23. Reinganum, Jennifer F, 1979. "A Simple Model of Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 851-858, August.
    24. Sofia Berto Villas-Boas, 2007. "Vertical Relationships between Manufacturers and Retailers: Inference with Limited Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 625-652.
    25. Roman Inderst & Tommaso Valletti, 2009. "Price discrimination in input markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(1), pages 1-19, March.
    26. Christopher M. Snyder, 1996. "A Dynamic Theory of Countervailing Power," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(4), pages 747-769, Winter.
    27. Carlson, John A & McAfee, R Preston, 1983. "Discrete Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 480-493, June.
    28. Monica Giulietti, 2007. "Buyer and seller power in grocery retailing: evidence from Italy," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, December.
    29. 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.
    30. Smith, Howard & Thanassoulis, John, 2006. "Upstream Competition and Downstream Buyer Power," CEPR Discussion Papers 5803, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    31. de Fontenay, Catherine C. & Gans, Joshua S., 2004. "Can vertical integration by a monopsonist harm consumer welfare?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 821-834, June.
    32. Alan T. Sorensen, 2000. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion in Retail Markets for Prescription Drugs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 833-862, August.
    33. McAfee, R Preston & Schwartz, Marius, 1994. "Opportunism in Multilateral Vertical Contracting: Nondiscrimination, Exclusivity, and Uniformity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 210-230, March.
    34. Chad Syverson, 2008. "Markets: Ready-Mixed Concrete," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 217-234, Winter.
    35. Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Klapper, Daniel & Draganska, Michaela, 2010. "A Larger Slice or a Larger Pie? Investigating Margins in the Distribution Channel," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt064044x8, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    36. Dubois, Pierre & Bonnet, Céline, 2010. "Non Linear Contracting and Endogenous Buyer Power between Manufacturers and Retailers: Empirical Evidence on Food Retailing in," CEPR Discussion Papers 8029, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    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. Howard Smith & Walter Beckert & Yuya Takahashi, 2020. "Competition in a spatially-differentiated product market with negotiated prices," Economics Series Working Papers 921, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Smith, Howard & Beckert, Walter & Takahashi, Yuya, 2020. "Competition in a spatially-differentiated product market with negotiated prices," CEPR Discussion Papers 15379, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Klein, Gordon J. & Rickert, Dennis & Wey, Christian, 2013. "Bargaining power in manufacturer-retailer relationships," DICE Discussion Papers 107, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).

    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. Bonnet, Céline & Bouamra-Mechemache, Zohra & Molina, Hugo, 2016. "The Welfare Effects of Brand Portfolio Strategies in the Soft Drink Industry: A Structural Bargaining Approach with Limited Data," 149th Seminar, October 27-28, 2016, Rennes, France 245168, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Fumagalli, Chiara & Polo, Michele, 2007. "Buyer power and quality improvements," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 45-61, June.
    3. Hans-Theo Normann & Bradley J. Ruffle & Christopher M. Snyder, 2007. "Do buyer-size discounts depend on the curvature of the surplus function? Experimental tests of bargaining models," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(3), pages 747-767, September.
    4. Inderst, Roman & Wey, Christian, 2007. "Buyer power and supplier incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 647-667, April.
    5. 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.
    6. Snyder, Christopher M., 1998. "Why do larger buyers pay lower prices? Intense supplier competition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 205-209, February.
    7. Walter Beckert, 2009. "Empirical analysis of buyer power," CeMMAP working papers CWP17/09, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    8. Allain, Marie-Laure & Avignon, Rémi & Chambolle, Claire, 2020. "Purchasing alliances and product variety," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Chenyu Yang, 2017. "Could Vertical Integration Increase Innovation?," 2017 Meeting Papers 908, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Germain Gaudin, 2018. "Vertical Bargaining and Retail Competition: What Drives Countervailing Power?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(614), pages 2380-2413, September.
    12. Roman Inderst & Christian Wey, 2005. "How Strong Buyers Spur Upstream Innovation," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 524, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Fabra, Natalia & Reguant, Mar, 2020. "A model of search with price discrimination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    14. Gaynor, Martin & Town, Robert J., 2011. "Competition in Health Care Markets," Handbook of Health Economics, in: Mark V. Pauly & Thomas G. Mcguire & Pedro P. Barros (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 499-637, Elsevier.
    15. Smith, Howard & Thanassoulis, John, 2006. "Upstream Competition and Downstream Buyer Power," CEPR Discussion Papers 5803, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Papadopoulos, Konstantinos G. & Skartados, Panagiotis, 2021. "The ambiguous competitive effects of passive partial forward integration," UC3M Working papers. Economics 33354, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    17. Howard Smith & Walter Beckert & Yuya Takahashi, 2020. "Competition in a spatially-differentiated product market with negotiated prices," Economics Series Working Papers 921, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Donna, Javier D. & Pereira, Pedro & Trindade, Andre & Yoshida, Renan C., 2020. "Direct-to-Consumer Sales by Manufacturers and Bargaining," MPRA Paper 105773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Kate Ho & Robin S. Lee, 2017. "Insurer Competition in Health Care Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 379-417, March.
    20. Symeonidis, George, 2010. "Downstream merger and welfare in a bilateral oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 230-243, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • 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
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L42 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Vertical Restraints; Resale Price Maintenance; Quantity Discounts
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ifs:cemmap:32/11. 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: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmifsuk.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.