Price Dynamics in a Vertical Sector: The Case of Butter
构建了一个垂直部门价格传导的简化模型，用于分析美国黄油市场的批发-零售价格动态，发现零售价格存在显著的非对称响应，表明零售层面存在不完全竞争。
We develop a reduced‐form model of price transmission in a vertical sector, allowing for refined asymmetric, contemporaneous and lagged, own and cross‐price effects under time‐varying volatility. The model is used to investigate the wholesale‐retail price dynamics in the U.S. butter market. The analysis documents the nature of nonlinear price dynamics in a vertical sector. It finds strong evidence of asymmetric retail price responses, both in the short term and the longer term, but only weak evidence of asymmetric wholesale price responses. Asymmetric retail responses play a major role in generating a skewed distribution of butter prices. The empirical results indicate the presence of imperfect competition at the retail level.