IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v122y2014i2p170-175.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Double marginalization and cost pass-through: Weyl–Fabinger and Cowan meet Spengler and Bresnahan–Reiss

Author

Listed:
  • Adachi, Takanori
  • Ebina, Takeshi

Abstract

Consider the classical double marginalization problem of single-product successive monopolies. We show that the ratio of the cost pass-through at the final sale relative to that at the wholesale level is characterized by the curvature of inverse demand in the final market. We also apply Cowan’s (2012) method, which utilizes the idea of pass-through in an analysis of third-degree price discrimination, to compare consumer surplus under vertical integration and separation.

Suggested Citation

  • Adachi, Takanori & Ebina, Takeshi, 2014. "Double marginalization and cost pass-through: Weyl–Fabinger and Cowan meet Spengler and Bresnahan–Reiss," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 170-175.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:122:y:2014:i:2:p:170-175
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2013.11.020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176513005144
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.11.020?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Celine Bonnet & Pierre Dubois & Sofia B. Villas Boas & Daniel Klapper, 2013. "Empirical Evidence on the Role of Nonlinear Wholesale Pricing and Vertical Restraints on Cost Pass-Through," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 500-515, May.
    2. Emi Nakamura & Dawit Zerom, 2010. "Accounting for Incomplete Pass-Through," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(3), pages 1192-1230.
    3. Randy Brenkers & Frank Verboven, 2006. "Liberalizing A Distribution System: The European Car Market," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 216-251, March.
    4. Auer, Raphael A. & Schoenle, Raphael S., 2016. "Market structure and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 60-77.
    5. Patrick Rey & Thibaud Vergé, 2010. "Resale Price Maintenance And Interlocking Relationships," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 928-961, December.
    6. Gita Gopinath & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Chang-Tai Hsieh & Nicholas Li, 2011. "International Prices, Costs, and Markup Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2450-2486, October.
    7. Céline Bonnet & Pierre Dubois & Sofia B. Villas Boas & Daniel Klapper, 2013. "Empirical evidence on the role nonlinear wholesale pricing and vertical restraints on cost pass-trough," Post-Print hal-02643672, HAL.
    8. Simon Cowan, 2007. "The welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination with nonlinear demand functions," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 419-428, June.
    9. Villas-Boas, Sofia & Hellerstein, Rebecca, 2006. "Identification of supply models of retailer and manufacturer oligopoly pricing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 132-140, January.
    10. Hellerstein, Rebecca & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2010. "Outsourcing and pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 170-183, July.
    11. Michael A. Cohen, 2013. "A Study of Vertical Integration and Vertical Divestiture: The Case of Store Brand Milk Sourcing in Boston," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 101-124, March.
    12. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Rebecca Hellerstein, 2013. "A Structural Approach to Identifying the Sources of Local Currency Price Stability," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 175-210.
    13. Morten Overgaard Ravn & Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe & Martin Uribe, 2010. "Incomplete Cost Pass-Through Under Deep Habits," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(2), pages 317-332, April.
    14. E. Glen Weyl & Michal Fabinger, 2013. "Pass-Through as an Economic Tool: Principles of Incidence under Imperfect Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 528-583.
    15. Abito, Jose Miguel & Wright, Julian, 2008. "Exclusive dealing with imperfect downstream competition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 227-246, January.
    16. Rey, Patrick & Salant, David, 2012. "Abuse of dominance and licensing of intellectual property," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 518-527.
    17. Sridhar Moorthy, 2005. "A General Theory of Pass-Through in Channels with Category Management and Retail Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 110-122, August.
    18. Timothy F. Bresnahan & Peter C. Reiss, 1985. "Dealer and Manufacturer Margins," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 253-268, Summer.
    19. Céline Bonnet & Pierre Dubois, 2010. "Inference on vertical contracts between manufacturers and retailers allowing for nonlinear pricing and resale price maintenance," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 139-164, March.
    20. Hellerstein, Rebecca & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2010. "Outsourcing and pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 170-183, July.
    21. Simon Cowan, 2012. "Third-Degree Price Discrimination and Consumer Surplus," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 333-345, June.
    22. Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Hellerstein, Rebecca, 2006. "Identification of Supply Models of Manufacturer and Retailer Oligopoly Pricing," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt9zh144zt, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    23. Raphael Schoenle & Raphael Auer, 2012. "Market Structure and Pass-Through," 2012 Meeting Papers 61, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    24. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, April.
    25. Sofia Berto Villas-Boas, 2007. "Vertical Relationships between Manufacturers and Retailers: Inference with Limited Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 625-652.
    26. Varian, Hal R, 1985. "Price Discrimination and Social Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 870-875, September.
    27. Gee Hee Hong & Nicholas Li, 2017. "Market Structure and Cost Pass-Through in Retail," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 151-166, March.
    28. Emi Nakamura, 2008. "Pass-Through in Retail and Wholesale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 430-437, May.
    29. Hellerstein, Rebecca, 2008. "Who bears the cost of a change in the exchange rate? Pass-through accounting for the case of beer," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 14-32, September.
    30. Lantz, Björn, 2009. "The double marginalization problem of transfer pricing: Theory and experiment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 196(2), pages 434-439, July.
    31. Oz Shy & Zhu Wang, 2011. "Why Do Payment Card Networks Charge Proportional Fees?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1575-1590, June.
    32. Joseph J. Spengler, 1950. "Vertical Integration and Antitrust Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4), pages 347-347.
    33. Ricard Gil, 2009. "Revenue Sharing Distortions and Vertical Integration in the Movie Industry," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 579-610, October.
    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. Gaudin, Germain, 2016. "Pass-through, vertical contracts, and bargains," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1-4.
    2. Ziaul Haq Adnan & Ertunga Özelkan, 2019. "Bullwhip effect in pricing under different supply chain game structures," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(5), pages 393-404, October.
    3. Durevall, Dick, 2017. "Cost Pass-Through in the Swedish Coffee Market," Working Papers in Economics 697, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    4. Adachi, Takanori & Ebina, Takeshi, 2014. "Cost pass-through and inverse demand curvature in vertical relationships with upstream and downstream competition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 465-468.
    5. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through, Incidence, and the Welfare Burden of Taxation in Oligopoly," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1040, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    6. Luong, Phat V. & Xu, Xiaowei, 2020. "Pass-through of commodity price shocks in distribution channels with risk-averse agents," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    7. Jong-Hee Hahn & Youngjun Lee, 2023. "Sequential Pricing in Successive or Bilateral Monopolies with Separate Consumer Groups," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 39, pages 495-516.
    8. Simon Cowan, 2023. "Welfare-increasing monopolization," Economics Series Working Papers 1006, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Fu, Xiao & Tan, Guofu, 2024. "Double markups under bilateral vertical contracting," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    10. Takanori Adachi & Muhammad Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through, Incidence, and the Welfare Burden of Taxation in Oligopoly," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1040, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    11. Yongmin Chen & Marius Schwartz, 2015. "Differential pricing when costs differ: a welfare analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 442-460, June.
    12. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through and Welfare Measures under Imperfect Competition," Papers 1702.04967, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2018.
    13. Michele Santoni, 2017. "Protective Excise Taxation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 421-445, December.
    14. Durevall, Dick, 2017. "Cost Pass-Through in the Swedish Coffee Market," HUI Working Papers 120, HUI Research.
    15. Adachi, Takanori, 2020. "Hong and Li meet Weyl and Fabinger: Modeling vertical structure by the conduct parameter approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).

    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. Celine Bonnet & Pierre Dubois & Sofia B. Villas Boas & Daniel Klapper, 2013. "Empirical Evidence on the Role of Nonlinear Wholesale Pricing and Vertical Restraints on Cost Pass-Through," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 500-515, May.
    2. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through, Incidence, and the Welfare Burden of Taxation in Oligopoly," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1040, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    3. Gaudin, Germain, 2016. "Pass-through, vertical contracts, and bargains," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1-4.
    4. Gee Hee Hong & Nicholas Li, 2017. "Market Structure and Cost Pass-Through in Retail," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 151-166, March.
    5. Hellerstein, Rebecca & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2010. "Outsourcing and pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 170-183, July.
    6. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through and Welfare Measures under Imperfect Competition," Papers 1702.04967, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2018.
    7. Takanori Adachi & Muhammad Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through, Incidence, and the Welfare Burden of Taxation in Oligopoly," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1040, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    8. Duso, Tomaso & Szücs, Florian, 2017. "Market power and heterogeneous pass-through in German electricity retail," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 354-372.
    9. Bonnet, Céline & Réquillart, Vincent, 2013. "Tax incidence with strategic firms in the soft drink market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 77-88.
    10. Vardges Hovhannisyan, 2018. "A structural model of cost pass-through: the case of the US yogurt retailing," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 805-830, September.
    11. Eike Berner & Laura Birg & Dominik Boddin, 2017. "Retailers and Consumers: The Pass-through of Import Price Changes," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(7), pages 1314-1344, July.
    12. Durevall, Dick, 2017. "Cost Pass-Through in the Swedish Coffee Market," HUI Working Papers 120, HUI Research.
    13. Metin Çakır, 2022. "Retail pass‐through of package downsizing," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 259-278, April.
    14. Bolatto, Stefano & Grazzi, Marco & Tomasi, Chiara, 2022. "Export modes and firms’ adjustments to exchange rate movements," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    15. Nagengast, Arne J. & Bursian, Dirk & Menz, Jan-Oliver, 2021. "Dynamic pricing and exchange rate pass-through: Evidence from transaction-level data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    16. Miravete, Eugenio J. & Seim, Katja & Thurk, Jeff, 2023. "Pass-through and tax incidence in differentiated product markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    17. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Rebecca Hellerstein, 2006. "A Framework for Identifying the Sources of Local-Currency Price Stability with an Empirical Application," 2006 Meeting Papers 625, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. A. Auer, Raphael & Chaney, Thomas & Sauré, Philip, 2018. "Quality pricing-to-market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 87-102.
    19. Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich & Klein, Gordon J. & Rickert, Dennis & Wey, Christian, 2021. "Vertical relations, pass-through, and market definition: Evidence from grocery retailing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. Durevall, Dick, 2017. "Cost Pass-Through in the Swedish Coffee Market," Working Papers in Economics 697, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Double marginalization; Cost pass-through; Inverse demand curvature; Consumer surplus;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    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:eee:ecolet:v:122:y:2014:i:2:p:170-175. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.