estimating the foreclosure effect of exclusive dealing evidence from the entry of specialty beer producers this paper estimates an entry model to study the effect of exclusive dealing between anheuser busch and its distributors on rival brewers entry decisions and consumer surplus the entry model accounts for post entry demand conditions and strategic spillover effects i recover a brewer s fixed costs using a two step estimator and find spillover effects on brewers entry decisions i find that a brewer has higher fixed costs at locations where anheuser busch employ exclusive distributors but the effect is only statistically significant in certain local areas the estimates also show that a brewer is less likely to enter a location that is farther from its brewery has lower expected demand or is smaller in store size i implement counterfactual experiments to study the effect of banning exclusive contracts between anheuser busch and its distributors the results show that the welfare improvement associated with banning such contracts is very small

the competitive effects of vertical agreements for many years there were few distinctions drawn between horizontal and vertical agreements both were considered anticompetitive and subject to per se condemnation under the antitrust laws recently however this approach has come under attack and what was once the conventional wisdom is no longer so indeed there is growing acceptance of the view that vertical agreements can rarely have anticompetitive consequences per se legality would then be the appropriate standard in this paper we investigate the competitive implications of a particular vertical agreement the imposition of exclusive dealing requirements by a manufacturer on his distributors however to maintain the focus of the analysis we do not consider ultimate welfare gains or losses in an early application of economic analysis to this practice aaron director and edward levi 1956 suggest that exclusive dealing would be anticompetitive if it raised entry costs for rivals our object following this conjecture see their p 293 is to examine the market conditions under which exclusive dealing impedes entry howard marvel 1982 dealt with the practice of exclusive dealing he provides an efficiency rationale for exclusive dealing ignores the prospect that anticompetitive effects may follow and concludes that exclusive dealing ought therefore to be treated as legal per se p 25 this paper examines the possible anticompetitive effects neglected by marvel i market conditions for exclusive dealing

vertical contracts in the video rental industry a large body of theoretical work has explored the channels through which vertical contracts can induce efficiency improvements however it is also important to study vertical contracts empirically in order to gain insight into the relative size of different types of efficiency gains in this paper i empirically analyse a contractual innovation in the vertically separated video rental industry prior to 1998 video stores obtained inventory from movie distributors using simple linear pricing contracts in 1998 revenuesharing contracts were widely adopted i investigate the effect of the introduction of revenue sharing contracts on firms profits and consumer welfare i analyse a new panel data set of home video retailers that includes information on individual retailers contract and inventory choices as well as rentals and contract terms for 246 movie titles and 6137 retailers in the u s during each week of 1998 and 1999 and the first half of 2000 a structural econometric model of firms behaviour is developed that describes the nature of firms contract choices estimates from this model indicate that both upstream and downstream profits increase by 10 under the revenue sharing contract for popular titles for less popular titles the effects can be even larger i also estimate that consumers benefit when revenue sharing contracts are adopted

the competitive effects of vertical agreements comment recent economic analyses of vertical restraints and integration emphasize the circumstances under which these arrangements are socially efficient efficiency claims have proven contentious however for exclusive dealing a vertical restraint that prohibits any outlet carrying a manufacturer s product from stocking substitute brands this paper analyzes the impact of exclusive dealing on competition and allocative efficiency opinions expressed on the impact of exclusive dealing range from the extreme view that it is invariably anticompetitive to the view that it is always procompetitive the u s supreme court has concluded that in hundreds if not thousands of communities where there is a single retailer for a product

the competitive effects of vertical agreements comment in a recent paper comanor and frech 1985 cf claim that a manufacturer enjoying a product differentiation advantage could impose exclusive dealing on distributors while also raising its wholesale price the two consumer groups in the model would then pay higher prices than under nonexclusive dealing cf also suggest that exclusive dealing is more likely to emerge when product differentiation is relatively strong cf s analysis does not carefully incorporate the constraints imposed by dealer rationality doing so within cf s model i reach opposite conclusions exclusive dealing will be accepted only if the manufacturer reduces its wholesale price to dealers relative to nonexclusive dealing price rises to one group of consumers but falls to the other moreover exclusive dealing is more likely to emerge when product differentiation is relatively weak

exclusive dealing investment promotion may facilitate inefficient foreclosure this paper studies a model whereby exclusive dealing ed can both promote investment and foreclose a more efficient supplier since ed promotes the incumbent seller s investment the seller and the buyer realize a greater surplus from bilateral trade under exclusivity hence the parties involved may sign an ed contract that excludes a more efficient entrant in circumstances where ed would not arise absent investment the paper therefore invites a more cautious attitude towards accepting possible investment promotion arguments as a defense for ed

beer and the tie did divestiture of brewer owned public houses lead to higher beer prices in 1989 the united kingdom monopolies and mergers commission mmc recommended measures that eventually led brewers to divest themselves of 14 000 public houses the mmc claimed that their recommendations would lower retail prices and increase consumer choice since that time however retail prices have risen this paper contains an econometric analysis of the transition period the analysis is based on a model of the relationship between retail price and retail organisational form that emphasises how exclusive dealing clauses and strategic factors interact in 1989 in an important decision the united kingdom monopolies and mergers commission mmc recommended measures that eventually led brewers to divest themselves of 14 000 public houses the mmc claimed that their recommendations would lower retail prices and increase consumer choice there is considerable doubt however that their objectives were achieved indeed since the time that the recommendations were implemented retail prices have risen it is not clear however if prices would have increased in the absence of divestiture one goal of my research is to provide an answer to this question the mmc s recommendations created an exceptional opportunity to assess the effects that different contractual arrangements have on retail prices indeed one would like to investigate this relationship ceteris paribus unfortunately however the choice of vertical market structure is normally endogenous and it is impossible to condition on all of the factors that affect the contracting decision in the uk beer industry in contrast the government ordered changes in the type and terms of the contracts under which national brewers could operate their licensed premises increased separation between brewer and publican therefore was not due to changes in economic conditions moreover some premises the free houses that were not owned by a brewer were not affected by the beer orders the existence of a control group facilitates the analysis by strengthening the conclusions that one can draw in recent years economists have moved away from simple theories of vertical

valuing cultural world heritage sites an application of the travel cost method to mont saint michel abstractthis article using the zonal version of the travel cost method ztcm provides the first economic valuation of recreational trips to mont saint michel msm the msm was designated as united nations educational scientific and cultural organization world heritage site in 1979 and is the most visited coastal site in france the potential effects on consumer surplus cs estimates of some aspects of the ztcm are considered namely the treatment of the multiple purpose destination mp d trips the inclusion of the opportunity cost of time oct in the recreation demand model and the heterogeneity in the preferences the heterogeneity in the preferences is examined through a random parameters poisson model rppm the rppm generalizes the standard poisson model spm by allowing coefficients of explanatory variables to vary randomly across geographical units rather than being fixed our results show that 1 substantial cs values are associated with the msm 2 excluding ignoring mp d trips resul

exclusive dealing and common agency in international markets abstract this paper investigates the contractual choice between exclusive dealing and common agency in a simple international oligopoly model where products are sold through intermediaries we find that when trade barriers are high domestic firms tend to adopt exclusive dealing contracts whereas trade liberalization may lead firms to choose common agency social welfare can be raised be prohibiting exclusive dealing common agency when trade barriers are high low and products are close substitutes

the competitive effects of exclusive dealing evidence from the u s beer industry abstract several recent theoretical articles have modeled the effects of exclusive dealing contracts that restrict dealers to selling a single brand yet detailed empirical analysis of the impact of exclusivity on actual market outcomes has been lacking i analyze a unique set of firm level data on nearly 400 beer distributors in the united states the impacts of economies of scale and restrictions on distributor promotional activities on the use of exclusive dealing are measured as well as the effects of exclusivity on costs prices and output the results support the view that exclusive dealing serves to minimize manufacturer dealer incentive conflicts and enhances social welfare

over confidence may reduce negotiation delay abstract when a seller negotiates with multiple buyers how does over confidence affect the timing of trade in this paper we distinguish between over confidence about trade opportunities and over confidence about the terms of trade in bargaining environments without externalities both types of over confidence can cause delays in agreement if externalities are present the two forms of subjective bias have very different impacts on delay in particular over confidence about trade opportunities may reduce bargaining delay

the recreational value of lake mckenzie fraser island an application of the travel cost method lake mckenzie is one of the most highly used and popular visitor destinations of all fraser island s natural sites attracting 2000 visitors a day in peak periods many consider this level of visitation to be unsustainable and the management authority is currently considering a range of management options to address this issue in assessing the alternatives it is useful to have some idea of the recreational use value of the lake under the current regime as it is this value that is at risk if visitor numbers are to be reduced this paper using the zonal travel cost method estimates the recreational use value of fraser island and lake mckenzie for australian resident independent visitors

estimating social welfare using count data models an application to long run recreation demand under conditions of endogenous stratification and truncation this paper develops a negative binomial model of recreation demand that corrects for both truncation and endogenous stratification this approach recovers the demand associated with the general population not just the users of the site this model demonstrates the importance of the joint nature of the population s latent demand for trips and the consumer surplus associated with those trips the empirical results provide an estimate of the willingness to pay by washington state residents for hiking opportunities in the cascade mountain range these results are used to forecast total trips and willingness to pay over the next forty years copyright 1995 by mit press

assistance to the poor in a federal system abstract this paper explores the roles of different levels of government in assisting the poor using a model incorporating utility interdependence the paper first presents some theoretical results indicating how levels of poor relief vary with the extent of mobility of the poor under both centralized and decentralized systems of support it then provides a survey of the empirical work on migration of the poor along with a brief historical discussion of the experience under the english poor laws the concluding section turns to normative issues and contends that mobility of the poor is a basic source of inefficiency in wholly decentralized systems of support this inefficiency along with certain other equity considerations establishes a role for the central government in assistance to the poor

can resale price maintenance and franchise fees correct sub optimal levels of retail service abstract this paper examines resale price maintenance by a monopoly manufacturer who sells its product through monopolistically competitive retailers the retailers also provide service but there is an externality in its provision if the manufacturer sets only a wholesale price the externality results in too little service and the addition of rpm will not correct this maximum rpm is used only to correct the successive monopoly problem with no effect on service however if the manufacturer can also set a franchise fee too little service arises when the externality is large minimum rpm will correct this increasing both profits and consumer surplus this partially confirms the telser 1960 argument for rpm when the externality is small retailers provide too much service and the vertical externality argument is invalid these results suggest that the insights from simple vertical models may not generalize to models which allow other dimensions of non price competition among retailers

valuing the benefits of coastal water quality improvements using contingent and real behaviour recent moves in the european union have beenmade towards a toughening of legislation onbathing water quality this has focussedpolicy makers thoughts on the welfare benefitsresulting from such improvements especiallygiven their cost our paper uses a combinedstated and revealed preference approach tovalue coastal water quality improvements focussing on an area of scotland which hasconsistently failed to meet standards under thebathing waters directive we combine data onreal behaviour with data on contingentbehaviour using a random effects negativebinomial panel model this allows us to predictboth the change in participation trips shouldwater quality be improved and the welfareincrease per trip our model includes allowancefor the existence of substitute sites and forchanges in recreational behaviour during abeach visit

anti poverty competences in a multilevel government an empirical analysis of citizens preferences in europe abstractthis article aims to investigate individuals perceptions about institutions that should be primarily responsible for reducing or preventing poverty which is a dramatic phenomenon that became a crucial issue in european countries over recent years we propose an empirical analysis based on european survey data and investigate some citizens level and country level variables that potentially affect individuals attitudes our results suggest that country level economic and institutional characteristics do significantly affect individual preferences for the governance of anti poverty policies

on site time in the demand for recreation the standard travel cost model has treated on site time ambiguously over the years this paper shows how to handle on site time by exploring the implications of two assumptions in the travel cost model first people choose the amount of time that they spend on a site and second the time spent on site is exogenous this paper uses a duality result to show that when on site time is chosen the standard travel cost demand function takes a particularly simple form with slight modification standard estimation and welfare calculations continue to hold

decentralization and corruption evidence across countries the relationship between decentralization of government activities and the extent of rent extraction by private parties is an important element in the recent debate on institutional design the theoretical literature makes ambiguous predictions about this relationship and it has remained virtually unexamined by empiricists the authors make a first attempt at examining the issue empirically by looking at the cross country relationship between fiscal decentralization and corruption as measured by a number of different indices their estimates suggest that fiscal decentralization in government spending is significantly associated with lower corruption moreover they find that the origin of a country s legal system for example civil versus common legal code performs extremely well as an instrument for decentralization the estimated relationship between decentralization when so instrumented and corruption is even stronger the evidence suggests a number of interesting areas for future work including investigating whether there are specific services for which decentralized provision has a particularly strong impact on political rent extraction and understanding the channels through which decentralization succeeds in keeping corruption in check

a latent class approach to modeling endogenous spatial sorting in zonal recreation demand models a method for incorporating unobserved heterogeneity into aggregate count data frameworks is presented and used to control for endogenous spatial sorting in zonal recreation models the method is based on latent class analysis which has become a popular tool for analyzing heterogeneous preferences with individual data but has not yet been applied to aggregate count data the method is tested using data on backcountry hikers for a southern california study site and performs well for relatively small numbers of classes the latent class model produces substantially smaller welfare estimates compared to a constrained version that assumes homogeneity throughout the population

an economic theory of vertical restraints vertical restraints imposed by manufacturers on the prices locations and sales of retail firms represent a puzzling departure from the simple price mediated exchange of conventional markets in this article we analyze the theoretical basis for these restraints in a setting where retailers inform consumers and are imperfectly competitive and where a manufacturer has some monopoly power we identify three potential externalities affecting retailers decisions these externalities lead to the failure of simple uniform price contracts to coordinate the incentives of retailers with the objective of maximizing combined manufacturer and retailer profits we identify the packages of vertical restraints that are minimally sufficient under various conditions to neutralize the externalities and to achieve the joint profit maximum

addressing aggregation bias in zonal recreation models abstract models of recreation demand are often based on zonal data results from such models are susceptible to aggregation bias we propose a zonal model of recreation that captures some of the underlying heterogeneity of individual visitors by incorporating distributional information on per capita income from census sources into the aggregate demand function this adjustment eliminates the unrealistic constraint of constant income across zonal residents and thus reduces the risk of aggregation bias in estimated parameters in addition the corrected aggregate specification reinstates the applicability of generalized maximum likelihood methods and increases model efficiency

upfront payments and exclusion in downstream markets although upfront payments are often observed in contracts between manufacturers and retailers little is known about their competitive effects or the role retailers play in securing them in this article we consider a model in which two competing retailers make take it or leave it offers to a common manufacturer we find that upfront payments are a feature of equilibrium contracts and in all equilibria only one retailer buys from the manufacturer these findings support the claims of small manufacturers who argue that they are often unable to obtain widespread distribution for their products because of upfront payments copyright 2007 rand

exclusive contracts foster relationship specific investment exclusive contracts prohibit one or both parties from trading with anyone else contrary to earlier findings we show that investments that are specific to the contracting parties may be encouraged by exclusivity results depend on the nature of investments and the bargaining solution the major part of the analysis shows that exclusivity deals designed to assure the supply of essential inputs promote investment infinite penalties for breach even if ex post renegotiable may result in excessive investment in which case a positive but finite damage payment yields the first best outcome

discount chains and brand policy retail chains are observed in many industries the question addressed here is whether retail chains can exploit buyer power by excluding some brands in a theoretical model with two differentiated producers and a single retailer we show that a retailer will require exclusivity exclude a brand if the brands are sufficiently symmetric in demand potential exclusivity will increase welfare if the excluded brand is a close substitute for the brand carried by the retailer our theoretical results are also set in relation to some findings from the norwegian grocery industry jel classification l12 l42

equilibrium incentives for exclusive dealing in a differentiated products oligopoly we consider the incentives for oligopolistic manufacturers to adopt exclusive dealing manufacturers producing differentiated brands can choose to distribute through exclusive retail dealerships or nonexclusive dealerships with nonexclusive dealing manufacturers face an interbrand externality because brand enhancing investments made by one manufacturer may benefit the brands of other manufacturers although exclusive dealing eliminates this externality oligopolistic manufacturers may not choose exclusive dealing exclusive dealing enhances the incentive to invest but the promotional investments are a form of competition between manufacturers thus manufacturers might earn higher profits with nonexclusive dealing making lower promotional investments we find cases in which nonexclusive dealing is a dominant strategy we also find cases in which some but not all manufacturers adopt exclusive dealing moreover even if adoption of exclusive dealing by all manufacturers is the equilibrium it can arise from a prisoner s dilemma in that each manufacturer would prefer nonexclusive dealing

the economic theory of vertical restraints the types of contracts arising in a typical vertical manufacturer retailer relationship are more sophisticated than a simple uniform price in addition to setting per unit prices manufacturers and retailers also revert to non linear pricing and non price instruments these instruments or contracts are referred to as vertical restraints and can take the form of franchise fees resale price maintenance exclusive dealing exclusive territories and slotting allowances the use and the effects of one type of instrument versus another depend crucially on specific market assumptions upstream and downstream and on the division of bargaining power between manufacturers and retailers this paper surveys the industrial organization literature on retail pricing and shows that vertical restraint instruments have important effects on producer and consumer prices market structure efficiency and welfare

naked exclusion in the lab the case of sequential contracting in the context of the naked exclusion model of rasmusen ramseyer and wiley 1991 and segal and whinston 2000b we examine whether sequential contracting is more conducive to exclusion in the lab and whether it leads to lower exclusion costs for the incumbent than simultaneous contracting we find that an incumbent who proposes exclusive contracts to buyers sequentially is better able to deter entry than an incumbent who proposes contracts simultaneously in contrast to theory this comes at a substantial cost for the incumbent