Competition and Entry in Agricultural Markets: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
通过随机成本冲击和需求补贴实验，识别肯尼亚农产品中间商的市场竞争结构，发现交易商联合利润最大化、加价中位数39%，且新进入者对价格影响微乎其微。
African agricultural markets are characterized by low farmer revenues and high consumer food prices. Many have worried that this wedge is partially driven by imperfect competition among intermediaries. This paper provides experimental evidence from Kenya on intermediary market structure. Randomized cost shocks and demand subsidies are used to identify a structural model of market competition. Estimates reveal that traders act consistently with joint profit maximization and earn median markups of 39 percent. Exogenously induced firm entry has negligible effects on prices, and low take-up of subsidized entry offers implies large fixed costs. We estimate that traders capture 82 percent of total surplus.