IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jemstr/v3y1994i4p639-662.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rendering Alternative Offerings Less Profitable with Resale Price Maintenance

Author

Listed:
  • Greg Shaffer

Abstract

When it was legal, resale price maintenance (RPM) was commonly observed on items such as aspirin, pens, pencils, toothpaste, soap, shaving cream, and milk. In providing a theory that is based on compensating retailers for their opportunity cost of shelf space, and that does not hinge on the existence of externalities in nonprice competition, this article explains why a manufacturer might impose RPM on these and many other products. By contrast, the use of RPM on food, grocery, and drug store items is not easily explained by standard theories such as free riding on presale services and quality certification by high‐priced retailers. The typical supermarket has room for fewer than 25,000 products. Yet there are some 100,000 available, and between 10,000 and 25,000 items aye introduced each year.1

Suggested Citation

  • Greg Shaffer, 1994. "Rendering Alternative Offerings Less Profitable with Resale Price Maintenance," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(4), pages 639-662, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:3:y:1994:i:4:p:639-662
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1430-9134.1995.00639.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1430-9134.1995.00639.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1430-9134.1995.00639.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pickering, J F, 1974. "The Abolition of Resale Price Maintenance in Great Britain," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 120-146, March.
    2. Howard P. Marvel & Stephen McCafferty, 1984. "Resale Price Maintenance and Quality Certification," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(3), pages 346-359, Autumn.
    3. Klein, Benjamin & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "Vertical Restraints as Contract Enforcement Mechanisms," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 265-297, October.
    4. Bittlingmayer, George, 1983. "A Model of Vertical Restriction and Equilibrium in Retailing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 477-496, October.
    5. Perry, Martin K. & Porter, Robert H., 1990. "Can resale price maintenance and franchise fees correct sub-optimal levels of retail service?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 115-141.
    6. Martin K. Perry & Robert H. Groff, 1985. "Resale Price Maintenance and Forward Integration into a Monopolistically Competitive Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1293-1311.
    7. Benjamin F. Blair & Tracy R. Lewis, 1994. "Optimal Retail Contracts with Asymmetric Information and Moral Hazard," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 284-296, Summer.
    8. Ralph A. Winter, 1993. "Vertical Control and Price Versus Nonprice Competition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 61-76.
    9. Greg Shaffer, 1991. "Slotting Allowances and Resale Price Maintenance: A Comparison of Facilitating Practices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(1), pages 120-135, Spring.
    10. Perry, Martin K & Besanko, David, 1991. "Resale Price Maintenance and Manufacturer Competition for Exclusive Dealerships," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 517-544, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Reiffen, David, 1999. "On the equivalence of resale price maintenance and quantity restrictions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 277-288, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ingene, Charles A. & Parry, Mark E. & Xu, Zibin, 2020. "Resale Price Maintenance: Customer Service Without Free Riding," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 96(4), pages 563-577.
    2. Kenji, Matsui, 2011. "Resale price maintenance for supply chains distributing products with demand uncertainty," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 375-387, December.
    3. Frank Mathewson & Ralph Winter, 1998. "The Law and Economics of Resale Price Maintenance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 13(1), pages 57-84, April.
    4. Foros, Øystein & Kind, Hans Jarle & Shaffer, Greg, 2011. "Resale price maintenance and restrictions on dominant firm and industry-wide adoption," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 179-186, March.
    5. Ippolito, Pauline M & Overstreet, Thomas R, Jr, 1996. "Resale Price Maintenance: An Economic Assessment of the Federal Trade Commission's Case against the Corning Glass Works," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 285-328, April.
    6. Robert Innes & Stephen F. Hamilton, 2009. "Vertical restraints and horizontal control," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(1), pages 120-143, March.
    7. Oana Secrieru, 2006. "The Economic Theory Of Vertical Restraints," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(5), pages 797-822, December.
    8. Bakó, Barna & Kálecz-Simon, András, 2012. "Vertikális korlátozások - növelik vagy csökkentik a jólétet?. Érvek az irodalomból [Vertical constraints - do they increase or reduce welfare?. Arguments in the literature]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1138-1159.
    9. Matthias Hunold & Johannes Muthers, 2011. "Resale Price Maintenance: Hurting Competitors, Consumers and Yourself," Working Papers 100, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    10. Teis Lunde Lømo & Simen A. Ulsaker, 2021. "Lump‐Sum Payments and Retail Services: A Relational Contracting Perspective," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(1), pages 131-168, March.
    11. Bang, Se Hoon & Jin, Yangsoo, 2015. "Brand-specificity of pre-sale services and inter-brand competition with resale price maintenance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-9.
    12. Staahl Gabrielsen, Tommy & Johansen, Bjørn Olav & Shaffer, Greg, 2018. "When is Double Marginalization a Problem?," Working Papers in Economics 7/18, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    13. Giorgio Zanarone, 2009. "Vertical Restraints and the Law: Evidence from Automobile Franchising," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 691-700, November.
    14. Dulleck, Uwe & Kerschbamer, Rudolf, 2009. "Experts vs. discounters: Consumer free-riding and experts withholding advice in markets for credence goods," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 15-23, January.
    15. Martimort, David & Piccolo, Salvatore, 2007. "Resale price maintenance under asymmetric information," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 315-339, April.
    16. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Wey, Christian, 2023. "Resale price maintenance in a successive monopoly model," DICE Discussion Papers 395, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    17. Hao Wang, 2005. "Retailer Heterogeneity, Intra-Brand Competition and Social Welfare," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 87-97, June.
    18. Thomas R. Overstreet Jr. & Alan A. Fisher, 1985. "Resale Price Maintenance And Distributional Efficiency: Some Lessons From The Past," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 3(3), pages 43-58, March.
    19. Ayelet Israeli & Eric T. Anderson & Anne T. Coughlan, 2016. "Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 539-564, July.
    20. Moner-Colonques, Rafael, 2006. "The tradeoffs between retail service and exclusivity in distribution: Welfare and policy implications," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 241-261, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jemstr:v:3:y:1994:i:4:p:639-662. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/journals/JEMS/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.