IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yon/wpaper/2016rwp-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Identifying Price-Leadership Structures in Oligopoly

Author

Listed:
  • Paul W. Dobson

    (University of East Anglia)

  • Sang-Hyun Kim

    (University of East Anglia)

  • Hao Lan

    (University of East Anglia)

Abstract

Oligopoly can give rise to complex patterns of price interaction and price adjustment. While firms in oligopolistic markets may divide into price leaders and price followers, it is not inconceivable that some may take on dual roles, being a leader to one group but a follower to a different group. Thus who leads and who is led can be complicated and hierarchical. To help disentangle such pricing relationships, this paper develops a method to empirically identify price-leadership structures in n-firm oligopolistic markets by generalizing the duopoly method proposed by Seaton and Waterson (2013). Applying the method to UK food retailing industry, our analysis finds that it has a three-tier structure in which the two largest players (Tesco and Asda), tend to price-lead other retailers, while the other two of the Big 4 major chains (Sainsbury and Morrisons) play both follower (to the top two) and leader (to the smaller, premium/convenience positioned supermarket chains).

Suggested Citation

  • Paul W. Dobson & Sang-Hyun Kim & Hao Lan, 2016. "Identifying Price-Leadership Structures in Oligopoly," Working papers 2016rwp-99, Yonsei University, Yonsei Economics Research Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:yon:wpaper:2016rwp-99
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://121.254.254.220/repec/yon/wpaper/2016rwp-99.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chakraborty, Ratula & Dobson, Paul W. & Seaton, Jonathan S. & Waterson, Michael, 2015. "Pricing in inflationary times: The penny drops," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 71-86.
    2. Seaton, Jonathan S. & Waterson, Michael, 2013. "Identifying and characterising price leadership in British supermarkets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 392-403.
    3. Ratula Chakraborty & Paul W. Dobson & Jonathan S. Seaton & Michael Waterson, 2014. "Market Consolidation and Pricing Developments in Grocery Retailing: A Case Study," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Martin Peitz & Yossi Spiegel (ed.), THE ANALYSIS OF COMPETITION POLICY AND SECTORAL REGULATION, chapter 1, pages 3-29, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Cesar Revoredo‐Giha & Alan Renwick, 2012. "Retailers Price Behavior in the UK Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Market," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 451-468, September.
    5. Berck, Peter & Brown, Jennifer & Perloff, Jeffrey M. & Villas-Boas, Sofia Berto, 2008. "Sales: Tests of theories on causality and timing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1257-1273, November.
    6. Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2011. "An empirical model of search with vertically differentiated products," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(4), pages 729-757, December.
    7. Zhongmin Wang, 2009. "(Mixed) Strategy in Oligopoly Pricing: Evidence from Gasoline Price Cycles Before and Under a Timing Regulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(6), pages 987-1030, December.
    8. Martin Pesendorfer, 2002. "Retail Sales: A Study of Pricing Behavior in Supermarkets," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(1), pages 33-66, January.
    9. Lloyd, Tim A., 2008. "Price Leadership in UK Food Retailing: Time Series Representation and Evidence," 82nd Annual Conference, March 31 - April 2, 2008, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, UK 36862, Agricultural Economics Society.
    10. Lloyd, T.A. & McCorriston, S. & Morgan, C.W. & Poen, E. & Zgovu, E., 2014. "Retail price dynamics and retailer heterogeneity: UK evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 434-438.
    11. Lewis, Matthew S., 2012. "Price leadership and coordination in retail gasoline markets with price cycles," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 342-351.
    12. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2008. "Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1415-1464.
    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. Yiquan Gu & Leonardo Madio & Carlo Reggiani, 2019. "Exclusive Data, Price Manipulation and Market Leadership," CESifo Working Paper Series 7853, CESifo.

    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. Hao Lan & Paul W. Dobson, 2017. "Healthy Competition to Support Healthy Eating? An Investigation of Fruit and Vegetable Pricing in UK Supermarkets," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 881-900, September.
    2. Hao Lan & Tim Lloyd & Wyn Morgan & Paul W. Dobson, 2022. "Are food price promotions predictable? The hazard function of supermarket discounts," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 64-85, February.
    3. Kai Yin Woo & Shu Kam Lee, 2018. "Price convergence in the UK supermarket chains: Evidence from nonlinear cointegration approach," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 115-125.
    4. Katja Seim & Michael Sinkinson, 2016. "Mixed pricing in online marketplaces," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 129-155, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Angela S. Bergantino & Claudia Capozza & Mauro Capurso, 2018. "Pricing strategies: who leads and who follows in the air and rail passenger markets in Italy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(46), pages 4937-4953, October.
    7. Lloyd, Tim A. & Morgan, C. Wyn & McCorriston, Steve & Zgovu, Evious, 2011. "Do Sales Matter? Evidence from UK Food Retailing," 85th Annual Conference, April 18-20, 2011, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 108774, Agricultural Economics Society.
    8. David P. Byrne & Nicolas de Roos, 2017. "Consumer Search in Retail Gasoline Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 183-193, March.
    9. Chakraborty, Ratula & Dobson, Paul W. & Seaton, Jonathan S. & Waterson, Michael, 2015. "Pricing in inflationary times: The penny drops," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 71-86.
    10. Victor Aguirregabiria & Margaret Slade, 2017. "Empirical models of firms and industries," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1445-1488, December.
    11. Richard Volpe, 2013. "Promotional Competition Between Supermarket Chains," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(1), pages 45-61, February.
    12. Richards, Timothy J. & Hamilton, Stephen F. & Allender, William, 2016. "Search and price dispersion in online grocery markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 255-281.
    13. Inderst, Roman & Obradovits, Martin, 2015. "Too Much Attention on Low Prices? Loss Leading in a Model of Sales with Salient Thinkers," CEPR Discussion Papers 10813, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Ratula Chakraborty, 2018. "Do Retailers Manipulate Prices to Favour Private Label over Brands?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2018-02, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    15. Holzer, Patrick Sebastian, 2020. "The effect of time-varying factors on promotional activity in the German milk market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    16. Tveito, Andreas, 2019. "Coordination and price leadership in an unregulated environment," Working Papers in Economics 4/19, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    17. Lan, Hao & Lloyd, Tim A. & Morgan, C. Wyn, 2013. "The hazard function of sales: An analysis of UK supermarket food prices," 87th Annual Conference, April 8-10, 2013, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 151972, Agricultural Economics Society.
    18. Wein, Thomas, 2021. "Why abandoning the paradise? Stations incentives to reduce gasoline prices at first," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242362, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Snir, Avichai & Levy, Daniel, 2021. "If You Think 9-Ending Prices Are Low, Think Again," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 6(1 (Forthc).
    20. Levy, Daniel & Snir, Avichai & Gotler, Alex & Chen, Haipeng (Allan), 2020. "Not all price endings are created equal: Price points and asymmetric price rigidity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue forthcomi.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price leadership; oligopolistic markets; UK food retailing industry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • 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:yon:wpaper:2016rwp-99. 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: YERI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eryonkr.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.