Market regulation and other strategies to remedy abuse of buyer power

This chapter identifies, describes and evaluates alternative ways to limit or regulate the abuse of unilateral buyer power. The first category is that of more general regulation of conduct which can specifically address strategic conduct by dominant buyers, provide overall regulation of market participants regardless of power, set floors or other constraints on transactions, or provide sponsorship for alternative outlets for producers. The second category involves creating off-setting power in producers either by authorizing producer cartels or permitting integration, vertical or horizontal, by producers. Finally, public authorities can create alternative markets for producers. Each of these strategies has some capacity to limit abusive buyer conduct, but each is also fraught with difficulties both in defining standards and in achieving the goal of constraining buyer abuses. The implication, consistent with Chapter 5, is that remedying buyer power problems once the power exists is likely to have only limited effectiveness.