Food Banks and Retail Markups
研究了食品银行捐赠对零售商加价的影响，发现捐赠更多的商店能收取33%更高的加价，表明捐赠符合零售商自身利益。
Abstract Food banks play a critical part in the food distribution system. In this paper, we examine the impact of food bank donations on retailer markups using data on donations and store-level productivity. We frame our empirical model of food bank donations and store-level markups as an example of quality-based price discrimination and find that stores that donate more food to the local food bank are able to charge higher markups—33% higher—after controlling for the well-known endogeneity problems. Our findings suggest that donations are not just charitable gestures by retailers but are in their own self-interests.