Vertical Bargaining and Retail Competition: What Drives Countervailing Power?
研究了当投入品价格通过谈判确定时，零售市场集中度变化的影响。发现抵消性买方力量是否出现取决于投入品价格向零售价格的传导率，且通常不会降低零售价格。
This paper investigates the effects of changes in retail market concentration when input prices are negotiated. Results are derived from a model of bilateral Nash-bargaining between upstream and downstream firms which allows for general forms of demand and retail competition. Whether countervailing buyer power arises, in the form of lower negotiated prices following greater concentration downstream, depends on the pass-through rate of input prices to retail prices. Countervailing buyer power arises in equilibrium for a broad class of demand forms, and its magnitude depends on the degree of product differentiation. However, it generally does not translate into lower retail prices because of heightened market power at the retail level. The demand systems commonly used in the literature impose strong restrictions on the results.