IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v93y2024ics0167718724000109.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of franchising on stores, competitors, and consumers

Author

Listed:
  • Ackermann, Jeff

Abstract

Following a corporate acquisition, a casual dining chain sold all of its company-owned stores to franchisees. I exploit this change in franchise status to estimate the effects of franchising. I use a utility-based choice model to predict alcohol sales for all liquor-selling bars and restaurants in Texas over a 10-year period. Using this model, I find that franchising a restaurant increases its revenues by 7 percent. A substantial share of this revenue increase comes at the expense of competing national chains. I also find that franchising a store produces a consumer utility gain equal to the gain that would result from a 2.8-mile reduction in distance from the individual's home to the store.

Suggested Citation

  • Ackermann, Jeff, 2024. "The effects of franchising on stores, competitors, and consumers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:93:y:2024:i:c:s0167718724000109
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2024.103055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718724000109
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2024.103055?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. Stephen F Lin & Catherine Thomas & Arturs Kalnins, 2020. "In-House and Arm’s Length: Productivity Heterogeneity and Variation in Organizational Form [“Vertical Integration and Technology: Theory and Evidence]," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 36(3), pages 415-460.
    2. Arturs Kalnins & Francine Lafontaine, 2013. "Too Far Away? The Effect of Distance to Headquarters on Business Establishment Performance," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 157-179, August.
    3. Brickley, James A. & Dark, Frederick H., 1987. "The choice of organizational form The case of franchising," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 401-420, June.
    4. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    5. Arturs Kalnins, 2004. "An Empirical Analysis of Territorial Encroachment Within Franchised and Company-Owned Branded Chains," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 476-489, September.
    6. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret E. Slade, 1997. "Retail Contracting: Theory and Practice," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 1-25, March.
    7. Mathewson, G Frank & Winter, Ralph A, 1985. "The Economics of Franchise Contracts," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 503-526, October.
    8. Arturs Kalnins & Francine Lafontaine, 2004. "Multi-unit Ownership in Franchising: Evidence from the Fast-Food Industry in Texas," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(4), pages 747-761, Winter.
    9. Debajyoti Chakrabarty & Ananish Chaudhuri & Chester Spell, 2002. "Information Structure and Contractual Choice in Franchising," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 158(4), pages 638-663, December.
    10. Raphael Thomadsen, 2005. "The Effect of Ownership Structure on Prices in Geographically Differentiated Industries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 908-929, Winter.
    11. Maruyama, Masayoshi & Yamashita, Yu, 2010. "The logic of franchise contracts: Empirical results of Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 183-192, August.
    12. Francine Lafontaine & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2005. "Targeting Managerial Control: Evidence from Franchising," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 131-150, Spring.
    13. Renáta Kosová & Francine Lafontaine & Rozenn Perrigot, 2013. "Organizational Form and Performance: Evidence from the Hotel Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1303-1323, October.
    14. Jeff Ackermann, 2019. "The Effect of Franchising on Store Performance: Evidence from an Ownership Change," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5188-5196, November.
    15. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2003. "The Effect of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 409-451.
    16. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret E. Slade, 2012. "Inter-Firm Contracts [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    17. Francine Lafontaine, 1992. "Agency Theory and Franchising: Some Empirical Results," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(2), pages 263-283, Summer.
    18. Paul B. Ellickson & Paul L.E. Grieco & Oleksii Khvastunov, 2020. "Measuring competition in spatial retail," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(1), pages 189-232, March.
    19. Arturs Kalnins & Kyle J. Mayer, 2004. "Franchising, Ownership, and Experience: A Study of Pizza Restaurant Survival," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12), pages 1716-1728, December.
    20. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    21. Thomas J. Holmes, 2011. "The Diffusion of Wal‐Mart and Economies of Density," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 253-302, January.
    22. Lin, Stephen F. & Thomas, Catherine & Kalnins, Arturs, 2020. "In-house and arm's length: productivity heterogeneity and variation in organizational form," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115327, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    23. Minkler, Alanson P., 1990. "An empirical analysis of a firm's decision to franchise," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 77-82, September.
    24. Brickley, James A, 1999. "Incentive Conflicts and Contractual Restraints: Evidence from Franchising," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 745-774, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ackermann, Jeff, 2016. "The Effect of Franchising on Store Performance: Evidence from an Ownership Change," MPRA Paper 76185, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Arturs Kalnins, 2017. "Pricing Variation Within Dual-Distribution Chains: The Different Implications of Externalities and Signaling for High- and Low-Quality Brands," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 139-152, January.
    3. Vázquez-Suárez, Luis & Mejía-Vásquez, Pericles Ramón & Serafim da Silva, Sheila & Sánchez-Gómez, Roberto, 2022. "Gender’s moderating role in the relationship between organisational form and performance in the Spanish supermarket industry," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Itai Ater & Oren Rigbi, 2007. "Price Control In Franchised Chains: The Case Of McDonald's Dollar Menu," Discussion Papers 06-022, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    5. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret Slade, 2007. "Vertical Integration and Firm Boundaries: The Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 629-685, September.
    6. Jindal, Rupinder, 2011. "Reducing the Size of Internal Hierarchy: The Case of Multi-Unit Franchising," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(4), pages 549-562.
    7. Josef Windsperger, 2013. "The governance of franchising networks," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 27, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Meiseberg, Brinja & Perrigot, Rozenn, 2020. "Pricing-based practices, conflicts and performance in franchising," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 939-955.
    9. Francine Lafontaine & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2005. "Targeting Managerial Control: Evidence from Franchising," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 131-150, Spring.
    10. Jeff Ackermann, 2019. "The Effect of Franchising on Store Performance: Evidence from an Ownership Change," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5188-5196, November.
    11. Masayoshi Maruyama & Yu Yamashita, 2012. "Franchise Fees and Royalties: Theory and Empirical Results," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 40(3), pages 167-189, May.
    12. S. Verbieren & M. Cools & A. Van den Abbeele, 2008. "Franchising. A Literature Review on Management and Control Issues," Review of Business and Economic Literature, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Review of Business and Economic Literature, vol. 0(4), pages 398-443.
    13. Jung Hwan Koh & Christian Rojas, 2022. "Multi‐unit ownership and market power: A study of the lodging industry in Texas," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(8), pages 4087-4105, December.
    14. Arturs Kalnins, 2004. "An Empirical Analysis of Territorial Encroachment Within Franchised and Company-Owned Branded Chains," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 476-489, September.
    15. Maruyama, Masayoshi & Yamashita, Yu, 2010. "The logic of franchise contracts: Empirical results of Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 183-192, August.
    16. Muriel Fadairo & Cyntia Lanchimba & Miguel Yangari, 2016. "Optimal Monetary Provisions and Risk Aversion in Plural Form Franchise Network. A Model of Incentives with Heterogeneous Agents," Working Papers 1602, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    17. Guo, Shiau-Ling, 2023. "The governance implication of the geographic concentration of franchise activities for franchise relationships," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    18. Francine Lafontaine & Joanne Oxley, 2001. "International Franchising: Evidence from US and Canadian Franchisors in Mexico," NBER Working Papers 8179, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Muriel Fadairo & Cintya Lanchimba Lopez, 2012. "Performance in distribution systems : What is the influence of the upstream firm’s organizational choices ?," Working Papers 1224, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    20. Thomas, Catherine & Lin, Stephen & Kalnins, Arturs, 2018. "In-House and Arm's Length: Productivity Heterogeneity and Variation in Organizational Form," CEPR Discussion Papers 13190, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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:93:y:2024:i:c:s0167718724000109. 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.