IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v15y1997i2p137-164.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Buyer groups

Author

Listed:
  • Mathewson, Frank
  • Winter, Ralph A.

Abstract

When does it pay a coalition of buyers and a coalition of sellers to by-pass a noncooperative market outcome by negotiating an alternative contract? Should these collective contracts be allowed? This paper investigates one source of the incentive for collective contracting: the failure of monopolistically competitive markets to achieve the optimal trade-off between lower costs and greater variety or availability of products. A collective contract benefits buyers inside the coalition but imposes a negative externality on buyers outside the coalition, who face higher prices and lower availability when the contract is allowed. We analyze the conditions under which the collective contracts increase total welfare. We suggest that the model represents one component of the incentives for "managed competition" in health care markets.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Mathewson, Frank & Winter, Ralph A., 1997. "Buyer groups," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 137-164, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:15:y:1997:i:2:p:137-164
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167-7187(95)00517-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    • G. Frank Mathewson & Ralph A. Winter, 1995. "Buyer Groups," Working Papers rwinter-96-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    2. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, April.
    3. Aghion, Philippe & Bolton, Patrick, 1987. "Contracts as a Barrier to Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 388-401, June.
    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. Øystein Foros & Hans Jarle Kind, 2017. "Upstream Partnerships among Competitors when Size Matters," CESifo Working Paper Series 6512, CESifo.
    2. Chris Doyle & Martijn Han, 2014. "Cartelization Through Buyer Groups," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(3), pages 255-275, May.
    3. Krasteva, Silvana & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2012. "On the role of confidentiality and deadlines in bilateral negotiations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 714-730.
    4. Douglas Cumming & Sofia Johan, 2015. "Cameras tracking shoppers: the economics of retail video surveillance," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(2), pages 235-257, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Mattoo, Aaditya, 1999. "Can no antitrust policy be better than some antitrust policy?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2191, The World Bank.
    7. David Mills, 2010. "Buyer Power and Industry Structure," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(3), pages 213-225, May.
    8. Roman Inderst & Tommaso M. Valletti, 2011. "Buyer Power And The ‘Waterbed Effect’," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 1-20, March.
    9. Mattoo, Aaditya, 2001. "Can no competition policy be better than some competition policy?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 55-77, January.
    10. Raskovich, Alexander, 2007. "Competition or collusion? Negotiating discounts off posted prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 341-354, April.

    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. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    2. Rey, Patrick & Tirole, Jean, 2007. "A Primer on Foreclosure," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 2145-2220, Elsevier.
    3. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107069978.
    4. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    5. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    6. Kathryn E. Spier, 2003. "“Tied to the Mast”: Most-Favored-Nation Clauses in Settlement Contracts," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 91-120, January.
    7. Allen C. Goodman & Miron Stano, 2000. "Hmos and Health Externalities: A Local Public Good Perspective," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(3), pages 247-269, May.
    8. Kopányi, Dávid, 2017. "The coexistence of stable equilibria under least squares learning," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 277-300.
    9. David, Maia & Nimubona, Alain-Désiré & Sinclair-Desgagné, Bernard, 2011. "Emission taxes and the market for abatement goods and services," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 179-191, January.
    10. Jun Li & Serguei Netessine & Sergei Koulayev, 2018. "Price to Compete … with Many: How to Identify Price Competition in High-Dimensional Space," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4118-4136, September.
    11. Tommy Staahl Gabrielsen & Lars Sørgard, 1999. "Exclusive versus Common Dealership," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(2), pages 353-366, October.
    12. Gerhard Clemenz & Klaus Gugler, 2009. "Locational choice and price competition: some empirical results for the austrian retail gasoline market," Studies in Empirical Economics, in: Giuseppe Arbia & Badi H. Baltagi (ed.), Spatial Econometrics, pages 223-244, Springer.
    13. Claude Crampes & Carole Haritchabalet & Bruno Jullien, 2009. "Advertising, Competition And Entry In Media Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 7-31, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Corchón Luis Carlos & Zudenkova Galina, 2013. "The Welfare Effects of Location and Quality in Oligopoly," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1143-1178, July.
    16. Bouckaert, Jan & Degryse, Hans, 1995. "Phonebanking," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 229-244, February.
    17. Chad Syverson, 2001. "Output Market Segmentation and Productivity," Working Papers 01-07, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    18. Simon P. Anderson & Regis Renault, 1999. "Pricing, Product Diversity, and Search Costs: A Bertrand-Chamberlin-Diamond Model," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 719-735, Winter.
    19. Audretsch, David B. & Baumol, William J. & Burke, Andrew E., 2001. "Competition policy in dynamic markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 613-634, April.
    20. Gulati, Namrata & Ray, Tridip, 2016. "Inequality, neighbourhoods and welfare of the poor," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 214-228.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

    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:indorg:v:15:y:1997:i:2:p:137-164. 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/inca/505551 .

    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.