IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/umc/wpaper/0712.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Abstract

We analyze the effect of Wal-Marts entry into the grocery market using a unique store-level price panel data set. We use OLS and two IV specifications to estimate the effect of Wal-Marts entry on competitors prices of 24 grocery items across several categories. Wal-Marts price advantage over competitors for these products averages approximately 10%. On average, competitors response to Wal-Marts entry is a price reduction of 11.2%, mostly due to smaller-scale competitors: the response of the big three supermarket chains (Albertsons, Safeway, and Kroger) is less than half that size. We confirm our results using a falsification exercises, in which we test for Wal-Marts effect on prices of services that it does not provide, such as movie tickets and dry cleaning services.

Suggested Citation

  • Emek Basker & Michael Noel, 2007. "The Evolving Food Chain: Competitive Effects of Wal-Mart's Entry into the Supermarket Industry," Working Papers 0712, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    • Handle: RePEc:umc:wpaper:0712
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JJVOa6Z_kXmdzF2NsySpQkz1xUgfh-u/view?usp=sharing
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ellickson, Paul B., 2006. "Quality competition in retailing: A structural analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 521-540, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Paul B. Ellickson, 2007. "Does Sutton apply to supermarkets?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 43-59, March.
    4. Emek Basker, 2007. "When Good Instruments Go Bad," Working Papers 0706, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    5. Jerry Hausman & Ephraim Leibtag, 2007. "Consumer benefits from increased competition in shopping outlets: Measuring the effect of Wal-Mart," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(7), pages 1157-1177.
    6. David C. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 1996. "Convergence to the Law of One Price Without Trade Barriers or Currency Fluctuations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1211-1236.
    7. Chris Forman & Anindya Ghose & Avi Goldfarb, 2009. "Competition Between Local and Electronic Markets: How the Benefit of Buying Online Depends on Where You Live," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(1), pages 47-57, January.
    8. Vishal P. Singh & Karsten T. Hansen & Robert C. Blattberg, 2006. "Market Entry and Consumer Behavior: An Investigation of a Wal-Mart Supercenter," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 457-476, September.
    9. Anthony J. Dukes & Tansev Geylani & Kannan Srinivasan, 2009. "Strategic Assortment Reduction by a Dominant Retailer," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 309-319, 03-04.
    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. Charles Courtemanche & Art Carden, 2014. "Competing with Costco and Sam's Club: Warehouse Club Entry and Grocery Prices," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(3), pages 565-585, January.
    2. Emek Basker & Shawn Klimek & Pham Hoang Van, 2012. "Supersize It: The Growth of Retail Chains and the Rise of the “Big‐Box” Store," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 541-582, September.
    3. Stephen Martin, 2012. "Market Structure and Market Performance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 40(2), pages 87-108, March.
    4. Emek Basker, 2015. "Change at the Checkout: Tracing the Impact of a Process Innovation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 339-370, June.
    5. Srikanth Paruchuri & Joel A. C. Baum & David Potere, 2009. "The Wal‐Mart Effect: Wave of Destruction or Creative Destruction?," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(2), pages 209-236, April.
    6. Ellickson, Paul B. & Grieco, Paul L.E., 2013. "Wal-Mart and the geography of grocery retailing," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Seenivasan, Satheesh & Talukdar, Debabrata, 2016. "Competitive Effects of Wal-Mart Supercenter Entry: Moderating Roles of Category and Brand Characteristics," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 218-225.
    8. Rebecca Cleary & Jean-Paul Chavas, 2022. "Strategic supermarket pricing of private labels and manufacturer brands," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(6), pages 2921-2950, June.
    9. Kathleen Cleeren & Frank Verboven & Marnik G. Dekimpe & Katrijn Gielens, 2010. "Intra- and Interformat Competition Among Discounters and Supermarkets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 456-473, 05-06.
    10. Alessandro Bonanno & Stephan J. Goetz, 2012. "WalMart and Local Economic Development," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 26(4), pages 285-297, November.
    11. Emek Basker, 2007. "The Causes and Consequences of Wal-Mart's Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 177-198, Summer.
    12. Díaz, Fernando & Galetovic, Alexander & Muñoz, Roberto & Tapia, Jocelyn, 2024. "Unraveling the price-concentration relationship: The Role of national distribution centers in Chilean supermarket industry consolidation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    13. Castellari Elena & Bonanno Alessandro & Sckokai Paolo, 2019. "Food Retail Liberalization, Food Retail Structure and Food Prices: The Italian Case," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 17(2), pages 1-11, November.
    14. Rojas Christian & Lavoie Nathalie & Wang Shinn-Shyr, 2012. "Buyer Power and Vertically Differentiated Retailers," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-28, July.
    15. Mitsuru Igami, 2011. "Does Big Drive Out Small?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 38(1), pages 1-21, January.
    16. Paul L. E. Grieco, 2014. "Discrete games with flexible information structures: an application to local grocery markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(2), pages 303-340, June.
    17. Bauner, Christoph & Wang, Emily, 2019. "The effect of competition on pricing and product positioning: Evidence from wholesale club entry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    18. Zeballos, Eliana & Dong, Xiao & Islamaj, Ergys, "undated". "A Disaggregated View of Market Concentration in the Food Retail Industry," USDA Miscellaneous 333546, United States Department of Agriculture.
    19. Volpe, Richard J., III, 2011. "Evaluating the Performance of U.S. Supermarkets: Pricing Strategies, Competition from Hypermarkets, and Private Labels," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1-16, December.
    20. Alessandro Gavazza, 2011. "Demand spillovers and market outcomes in the mutual fund industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(4), pages 776-804, December.

    More about this item

    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
    • 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:umc:wpaper:0712. 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: Chao Gu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edumous.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.