IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/agribz/v20y2004i1p17-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reasons for high food prices in small market areas: The case of the Åland Islands

Author

Listed:
  • Ville Aalto-Setälä

    (National Consumer Research Centre, P.O. Box 5, FIN-00531 Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: ville.aalto-setala@ncrc.fi)

  • Jouko Kinnunen

    (Statistics and Research Åland (ÅSUB), P.O. Box 1187, AX-22111, Mariehamn, Åland, Finland. E-mail: jouko.kinnunen@asub.aland.fi)

  • Katri Koistinen

    (National Consumer Research Centre, P.O. Box 5, FIN-00531 Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: katri.koistinen@ncrc.fi)

Abstract

This article considers the reasons for high grocery prices in a small isolated market. The starting point of our study is the knowledge that the price of food in the Åland Islands-a small archipelago between Finland and Sweden-is significantly higher than in continental Finland. We also know that store-level economies of scale in grocery retailing mean that the structure of a small market is, even in the best case, either inefficient or uncompetitive. The article compares the price level of stores in Åland and Finland. Our aim is to decompose the price differences and allocate them between their various causes. The empirical results of the study are in accordance with the theory: high prices in Åland arise from a small average store size, high concentration in both the retailing and the food processing sector, border taxes, and transportation costs. An additional source of high prices is the strong regional spirit of the Ålanders: they are prepared to pay higher prices for products that are made in Åland. [JEL citations: D430, L110, L810]. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 20: 17-29, 2004.

Suggested Citation

  • Ville Aalto-Setälä & Jouko Kinnunen & Katri Koistinen, 2004. "Reasons for high food prices in small market areas: The case of the Åland Islands," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 17-29.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:agribz:v:20:y:2004:i:1:p:17-29
    DOI: 10.1002/agr.10083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/agr.10083
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/agr.10083?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. Ronald W. Cotterill, 1999. "Market power and the Demsetz quality critique: An evaluation for food retailing," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 101-118.
    2. Michael Spence, 1976. "Product Selection, Fixed Costs, and Monopolistic Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(2), pages 217-235.
    3. Lamm, R McFall, 1981. "Prices and Concentration in the Food Retailing Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 67-78, September.
    4. Bearse, Peter M & Bozdogan, Hamparsum & Schlottmann, Alan M, 1997. "Empirical Econometric Modelling of Food Consumption Using a New Informational Complexity Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(5), pages 563-586, Sept.-Oct.
    5. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    6. Song, Haiyan & Liu, Xiaming & Romilly, Peter, 1997. "A Comparative Study of Modelling the Demand for Food in the United States and the Netherlands," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(5), pages 593-608, Sept.-Oct.
    7. Cotterill, Ronald W, 1986. "Market Power in the Retail Food Industry: Evidence from Vermont," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(3), pages 379-386, August.
    8. repec:bla:jindec:v:45:y:1997:i:4:p:377-86 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Azzeddine M. Azzam, 1997. "Measuring Market Power and Cost‐efficiency Effects of Industrial Concentration," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 377-386, December.
    10. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    11. Panzar, John C., 1989. "Technological determinants of firm and industry structure," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-59, Elsevier.
    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. Koistinen, Katri & Järvinen, Raija, 2009. "Consumer observations on channel choices—Competitive strategies in Finnish grocery retailing," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 260-270.

    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. Lars-Hendrik Röller & Johan Stennek & Frank Verboven, 2006. "Efficiency Gains from Mergers," Chapters, in: Fabienne IIzkovitz & Roderick Meiklejohn (ed.), European Merger Control, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Perloff, Jeffrey M, 1991. "Econometric analysis of imperfect competition and implications for trade research," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt46w1j22d, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    3. Haucap, Justus & Lange, Mirjam R. J. & Wey, Christian, 2012. "Nemo Omnibus Placet: Exzessive Regulierung und staatliche Willkür," DICE Ordnungspolitische Perspektiven 27, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    4. Emanuela Todeva & Ruslan Rakhmatullin, 2016. "Industry Global Value Chains, Connectivity and Regional Smart Specialisation in Europe. An Overview of Theoretical Approaches and Mapping Methodologies," JRC Research Reports JRC102801, Joint Research Centre.
    5. Martin Gaynor, "undated". "What Do We Know About Competition and Quality in Health Care Markets?," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E62, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    6. Hernant, Mikael & Julander, Claes-Robert, 2020. "Does local competition make a difference for store profitability?: An empirical study of 168 Swedish supermarkets," SSE Working Paper Series in Business Administration 2020:4, Stockholm School of Economics.
    7. Sascha A. Weber & Sven M. Anders, 2007. "Price rigidity and market power in German retailing," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 737-749.
    8. Guanming Shi & Kyle W. Stiegert & Jean P. Chavas, 2011. "An analysis of bundle pricing in horizontal and vertical markets: The case of the U.S. cottonseed market," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 42, pages 77-88, November.
    9. O. Cem Ozturk & Sriram Venkataraman & Pradeep K. Chintagunta, 2016. "Price Reactions to Rivals’ Local Channel Exits," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 588-604, July.
    10. Perekhozhuk, Oleksandr, 2013. "Moderne Konzepte zur Analyse der Preisbildung auf dem Faktormarkt mit unvollständigem Wettbewerb," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 4, pages 99-106.
    11. Leonardo J. Basso & Sergio R. Jara-Díaz, 2006. "Are Returns to Scale with Variable Network Size Adequate for Transport Industry Structure Analysis?," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(3), pages 259-268, August.
    12. Jan De Loecker & Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Amit K. Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik, 2016. "Prices, Markups, and Trade Reform," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 445-510, March.
    13. Asplund, Marcus & Sandin, Rickard, 1999. "Competition in interrelated markets: An empirical study," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 353-369, April.
    14. repec:zwi:journl:v:41:y:2012:i:1:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lucinda, Claudio Ribeiro & Anuatti, Francisco, 2017. "Economies of Scale and Scope in the Sanitation Sector," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 37(2), November.
    16. Oleksandr Perekhozhuk, 2013. "Modern Concepts for Pricing Analysis in Imperfect Competition Production Factor Market," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 4, pages 99-106, December.
    17. Kinsey, Jean D., 1998. "Concentration Of Ownership In Food Retailing: A Review Of The Evidence About Consumer Impact," Working Papers 14329, University of Minnesota, The Food Industry Center.
    18. Vishal Singh & Ting Zhu, 2008. "Pricing and Market Concentration in Oligopoly Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(6), pages 1020-1035, 11-12.
    19. Fernando Bernstein & Awi Federgruen, 2004. "A General Equilibrium Model for Industries with Price and Service Competition," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(6), pages 868-886, December.
    20. Stephen P. King, 1997. "National Competition Policy," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 73(222), pages 270-284, September.
    21. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2017. "Monopolistic competition, the Dixit–Stiglitz model, and economic analysis," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(4), pages 798-802.

    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:wly:agribz:v:20:y:2004:i:1:p:17-29. 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://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6297 .

    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.