Abstract
Empirical studies of market power focus exclusively on industries with private firms. Yet, it is not uncommon to find private firms competing with public firms or cooperatives (coops) within the same market. We develop an empirical procedure for measuring market-power and cost-efficiency effects of concentration in mixed oligopoly consisting of coops and investment-owned firms (IOF) and apply the procedure to the Swedish beef-slaughter industry. We find that the cost-efficiency effect of coop concentration more than offset its market power effect, resulting lower beef prices. IOFs are found to be price-takers in both cattle procurement and beef sales.
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Azzam, A., Andersson, H. Measuring Price Effects of Concentration in Mixed Oligopoly: An Application to the Swedish Beef-slaughter Industry. J Ind Compet Trade 8, 21–31 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10842-007-0006-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10842-007-0006-x
Keywords
- mixed oligopoly
- cooperatives and investor-owned firms
- concentration
- market power
- cost efficiency
- Swedish beef market
- NEIO