IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rif/wpaper/61.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Do Competition Policy and Data Brokers Shape Product Market Competition?

Author

Listed:
  • Koski, Heli

Abstract

This paper empirically analyzes how a data broker affects competition in oligopolistic product markets. It examines a unique case concerning the two dominant Finnish food retail companies’ voluntary withdrawal from information exchange via a data broker. Moreover, the companies jointly approached the Finnish antitrust authority, originating an investigation whether their prior horizontal information exchange was illegal. This resulted in the permanent termination of a data broker’s business in the Finnish food retail sector. The empirical analysis employs quarterly data from the food retail sector of the old EU15 countries for 2005–2017. The difference-in-differences model is used to explore the competitive impacts of a termination of vertical and horizontal information exchange via a data broker in the Finnish food retail sector. Data suggest that competition was less fierce and product prices higher after the termination of information exchange via a data broker. Longer-term evidence on the price increase in the absence of a data broker is inconclusive. Furthermore, discontinuation of data exchange from the downstream to the upstream firms facilitated downstream bargaining power and generated a long-term increase in the gap between retail and producer prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Koski, Heli, 2018. "How Do Competition Policy and Data Brokers Shape Product Market Competition?," ETLA Working Papers 61, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:rif:wpaper:61
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/ETLA-Working-Papers-61.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dora Benedek & Ruud A. De Mooij & Michael Keen & Philippe Wingender, 2015. "Estimating VAT Pass Through," CESifo Working Paper Series 5531, CESifo.
    2. Athey, Susan & Bagwell, Kyle, 2001. "Optimal Collusion with Private Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(3), pages 428-465, Autumn.
    3. repec:bla:jindec:v:45:y:1997:i:4:p:429-43 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ulrich Laitenberger & Florian Smuda, 2015. "Estimating Consumer Damages In Cartel Cases," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 955-973.
    5. David Bounie & Antoine Dubus & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2021. "Selling strategic information in digital competitive markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(2), pages 283-313, June.
    6. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2006. "What Determines Cartel Success?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(1), pages 43-95, March.
    7. Fernando Vega-Redondo, 1997. "The Evolution of Walrasian Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(2), pages 375-384, March.
    8. Joseph E. Harrington Jr. & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2007. "Collusion under monitoring of sales," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 314-331, June.
    9. Philippe Aghion & Ufuk Akcigit & Ari Hyytinen & Otto Toivanen, 2018. "On the Returns to Invention within Firms: Evidence from Finland," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 208-212, May.
    10. David Bounie & Antoine Dubus & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2018. "Selling Strategic Information in Digital Competitive Markets," Working Papers hal-01794886, HAL.
    11. Bolotova, Yuliya & Connor, John M. & Miller, Douglas J., 2008. "The impact of collusion on price behavior: Empirical results from two recent cases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1290-1307, November.
    12. Loreto Lira & Magdalena Ugarte & Rodrigo Vergara, 2012. "Prices and market structure: an empirical analysis of the supermarket industry in Chile," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(36), pages 4731-4744, December.
    13. Salvatore Piccolo & Jeanine Miklós-Thal, 2012. "Colluding through suppliers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(3), pages 492-513, September.
    14. Iwan Bos & Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2010. "Endogenous cartel formation with heterogeneous firms," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 92-117, March.
    15. Andreoli-Versbach, Patrick & Franck, Jens-Uwe, 2015. "Endogenous price commitment, sticky and leadership pricing: Evidence from the Italian petrol market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 32-48.
    16. Svend Albæk & Peter Møllgaard & Per B. Overgaard, 1997. "Government‐Assisted Oligopoly Coordination? A Concrete Case," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 429-443, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Cuiabano, Simone, 2017. "Competition Policy Evaluation through Damage Estimation in Fuel Retail Cartel," TSE Working Papers 17-847, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    19. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2011. "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Determinants of Cartel Duration," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 455-492.
    20. Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2009. "Search, Obfuscation, and Price Elasticities on the Internet," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 427-452, March.
    21. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2002. "What Determines Cartel Success?," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2002-01, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    22. Johan Stennek, 1997. "Coordination in Oligopoly," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(4), pages 541-554, December.
    23. Jakub Kastl & Marco Pagnozzi & Salvatore Piccolo, 2018. "Selling information to competitive firms," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(1), pages 254-282, March.
    24. Loreto Lira & Magdalena Ugarte & Rodrigo Vergara, 2012. "Prices and market structure: an empirical analysis of the supermarket industry in Chile," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(36), pages 4731-4744, December.
    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. Tim Reuter, 2017. "Endogenous Cartel Organization and Antitrust Fine Discrimination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(3), pages 291-313, November.
    2. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    3. Kyle Hampton & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2012. "Demand shocks, capacity coordination, and industry performance: lessons from an economic laboratory," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 139-166, March.
    4. Christian Lorenz, 2008. "Screening markets for cartel detection: collusive markers in the CFD cartel-audit," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 213-232, October.
    5. Ari Hyytinen & Frode Steen & Otto Toivanen, 2019. "An Anatomy of Cartel Contracts," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2155-2191.
    6. Yuliy Sannikov & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2007. "Impossibility of Collusion under Imperfect Monitoring with Flexible Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1794-1823, December.
    7. Agnosteva, Delina & Syropoulos, Constantinos & Yotov, Yoto, 2017. "Multimarket Linkages, Cartel Discipline and Trade Costs," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2017-12, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    8. Hüschelrath, Kai & Veith, Tobias, 2011. "The impact of cartelization on pricing dynamics: Evidence from the German cement industry," ZEW Discussion Papers 11-067, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Onderstal, Sander, 2014. "Going once, going twice, reported! Cartel activity and the effectiveness of antitrust policies in experimental auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 317-336.
    10. Harrington, Joseph E. & Hüschelrath, Kai & Laitenberger, Ulrich & Smuda, Florian, 2015. "The discontent cartel member and cartel collapse: The case of the German cement cartel," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 106-119.
    11. Tanja Artiga González & Markus Schmid & David Yermack, 2019. "Does Price Fixing Benefit Corporate Managers?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4813-4840, October.
    12. Luke Garrod & Matthew Olczak, 2017. "Collusion Under Imperfect Monitoring with Asymmetric Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(3), pages 654-682, September.
    13. Marcel Boyer & Rachidi Kotchoni, 2011. "The Econometrics of Cartel Overcharges," Working Papers hal-00631429, HAL.
    14. Nikolaus Fink & Philipp Schmidt-Dengler & Konrad Stahl & Christine Zulehner, 2017. "Registered cartels in Austria: an overview," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 385-422, December.
    15. Xavier Vanssay & Can Erutku, 2011. "Damage at the Pump: Does Punishment Fit the Crime?," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 351-367, December.
    16. Andreoli-Versbach, Patrick & Franck, Jens-Uwe, 2013. "Actions Speak Louder than Words: Econometric Evidence to Target Tacit Collusion in Oligopolistic Markets," Discussion Papers in Economics 16179, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    17. Lee, Gea M., 2010. "Optimal collusion with internal contracting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 646-669, March.
    18. Andersson, Ola, 2006. "Bargaining in Collusive Markets," Working Papers 2006:21, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    19. Christos Genakos & Pantelis Koutroumpis & Mario Pagliero, 2018. "The Impact of Maximum Markup Regulation on Prices," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 239-300, June.
    20. Bejger, Sylwester, 2015. "Screening for collusion: Evidences from the Indian cement industry," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 11(2), pages 1-19.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Data brokers; Market for data; Competition; Competition 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
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    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:rif:wpaper:61. 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: Kaija Hyvönen-Rajecki (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/etlaafi.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.