IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkwp/1431.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Buyer Power in International Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Raff, Horst
  • Schmitt, Nicolas

Abstract

This paper investigates the implications for international markets of the existence of retailers/wholesalers with market power. Two main results are shown. First, in the presence of buyer power trade liberalization may lead to retail market concentration. Due to this concentration retail prices may be higher and welfare may be lower in free trade than in autarky, thus reversing the standard effects of trade liberalization. Second, the pro-competitive effects of trade liberalization are weaker under buyer power than under seller power.

Suggested Citation

  • Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2008. "Buyer Power in International Markets," Kiel Working Papers 1431, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:1431
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/17894/1/KWP_1431.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2009. "Buyer power in international markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 222-229, November.
    2. Robert C. Feenstra & Gordon H. Hanson, 2004. "Intermediaries in Entrepôt Trade: Hong Kong Re‐Exports of Chinese Goods," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 3-35, March.
    3. Beata Javorcik & Wolfgang Keller & James Tybout, 2008. "Openness and Industrial Response in a Wal‐Mart World: A Case Study of Mexican Soaps, Detergents and Surfactant Producers," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(12), pages 1558-1580, December.
    4. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2006. "Exclusive dealing and common agency in international markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 485-503, March.
    5. Dobson, Paul W & Waterson, Michael, 1997. "Countervailing Power and Consumer Prices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(441), pages 418-430, March.
    6. Patrick Rey & Jeanine Thal & Thibaud Vergé, 2006. "Slotting Allowances and Conditional Payments," Working Papers 2006-23, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    7. Elhanan Helpman, 2006. "Trade, FDI, and the Organization of Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 589-630, September.
    8. Barbara J. Spencer & Ronald W. Jones, 1991. "Vertical Foreclosure and International Trade Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 153-170.
    9. Suzanne Konzelmann & Charles Craypo & Rabih Aridi & Frank Wilkinson, 2005. "The national varieties of capitalism: the cases of Wal-mart and Ikea," Working Papers wp314, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    10. 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.
    11. repec:ccp:journl:v:1:y:2001:i:3:p:247-281 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Inderst, Roman & Wey, Christian, 2007. "Buyer power and supplier incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 647-667, April.
    13. Chen, Zhiqi, 2003. "Dominant Retailers and the Countervailing-Power Hypothesis," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(4), pages 612-625, Winter.
    14. Greg Shaffer, 1991. "Slotting Allowances and Resale Price Maintenance: A Comparison of Facilitating Practices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(1), pages 120-135, Spring.
    15. Emek Basker & Pham Hoang Van, 2007. "Wal-Mart as Catalyst to U.S.-China Trade," Working Papers 0710, Department of Economics, University of Missouri.
    16. Martin Richardson, 2017. "Trade Policy and Access to Retail Distribution," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Dimensions of Trade Policy, chapter 12, pages 243-262, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2005. "Endogenous vertical restraints in international trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(7), pages 1877-1889, October.
    18. James E. Rauch, 2001. "Business and Social Networks in International Trade," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1177-1203, December.
    19. Roger Clarke & Stephen Davies & Paul Dobson & Michael Waterson, 2002. "Buyer Power and Competition in European Food Retailing," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2405.
    20. Paul Dobson & Roger Clarke & Stephen Davies & Michael Waterson, 2001. "Buyer Power and its Impact on Competition in the Food Retail Distribution Sector of the European Union," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 247-281, September.
    21. Leslie M. Marx & Greg Shaffer, 2007. "Upfront payments and exclusion in downstream markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(3), pages 823-843, September.
    22. von Ungern-Sternberg, Thomas, 1996. "Countervailing power revisited," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 507-519, June.
    23. Gereffi, Gary, 1999. "International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-70, 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. Emek Basker & Pham Hoang Van, 2010. "Imports "Я" Us: Retail Chains as Platforms for Developing-Country Imports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 414-418, May.
    2. Gabriel Felbermayr & Benjamin Jung, 2011. "Trade Intermediation and the Organization of Exporters," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 634-648, September.
    3. Bolatto, Stefano & Grazzi, Marco & Tomasi, Chiara, 2022. "Export modes and firms’ adjustments to exchange rate movements," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Horst Raff & Nicolas Schmitt, 2016. "Manufacturers and retailers in the global economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 685-706, May.
    5. Meinen, Philipp & Raff, Horst, 2018. "International trade and retail market performance and structure: Theory and empirical evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 99-114.
    6. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2009. "Imports, pass-through, and the structure of retail markets," Kiel Working Papers 1556, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    7. Kamal Saggi, 2016. "Trade, Intellectual Property Rights, and the World Trade Organization," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 16-00014, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    8. Stefano Bolatto & Marco Grazzi & Chiara Tomasi, 2018. "Export Modes and Adjustments to Exchange Rate Movements," DEM Working Papers 2018/02, Department of Economics and Management.
    9. Ardelean, Adina & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr, 2023. "It Pays to be big: Price discrimination in maritime shipping," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    10. Emily Blanchard & Tatyana Chesnokova & Gerald Willmann, 2017. "Private labels and exports: trading variety for volume," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 153(3), pages 545-572, August.
    11. Angela Cheptea & Charlotte Emlinger & Karine Latouche, 2012. "Multinational Retailers and Home Country Exports," Post-Print hal-01208840, HAL.
    12. Baggs, Jen & Fung, Loretta & Lapham, Beverly, 2018. "Exchange rates, cross-border travel, and retailers: Theory and empirics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 59-79.
    13. Yu‐Fu Chen & Michael Funke, 2010. "Booms, Recessions And Financial Turmoil: A Fresh Look At Investment Decisions Under Cyclical Uncertainty," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(3), pages 290-317, July.
    14. Baek, Youngmin & Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Tsubota, Kenmei & Urata, Shujiro & Yamanouchi, Kenta, 2021. "Tariff Pass-through in Wholesaling: Evidence from Firm-level Data in Japan✰," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    15. Horst Raff & Nicolas Schmitt, 2012. "Imports and the structure of retail markets," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1431-1455, November.
    16. Fabio Musso & Mario Risso & Barbara Francioni, 2011. "Grande distribuzione alimentare e criteri di selezione dei fornitori nella prospettiva dei piccoli e medi produttori," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2011(1), pages 73-92.
    17. Markus Kelle & Jörn Kleinert, 2010. "German Firms in Service Trade," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 56(1), pages 51-72.
    18. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2009. "Buyer power in international markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 222-229, November.
    19. Gijsbert Zwart & S. Ikonnikova, 2010. "Reinforcing buyer power: Trade quotas and supply diversification in the EU natural gas market," CPB Discussion Paper 147, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    20. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2015. "Retailing and international trade: A survey of the literature," Economics Working Papers 2015-02, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    21. Kappel, Robert, 2010. "On the Economics of Regional Powers: Comparing China, India, Brazil, and South Africa," GIGA Working Papers 145, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    22. Never, Babette, 2013. "Toward the Green Economy: Assessing Countries' Green Power," GIGA Working Papers 226, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    23. S. Bolatto & M. Grazzi & C. Tomasi, 2017. "Export intermediaries and adjustments to exchange rate movements," Working Papers wp2004, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    24. Luca Macedoni & Vladimir Tyazhelnikov, 2024. "Oligopoly and oligopsony in international trade," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(2), pages 401-429, May.

    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. Horst Raff & Nicolas Schmitt, 2016. "Manufacturers and retailers in the global economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 685-706, May.
    2. Carsten Eckel, 2009. "International Trade and Retailing," CESifo Working Paper Series 2597, CESifo.
    3. Qiu Zhao, 2019. "The Influence of Buyer Power on Supply Chain Pricing with Downstream Competition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-19, May.
    4. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2015. "Retailing and international trade: A survey of the literature," Economics Working Papers 2015-02, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    5. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Fumagalli, Chiara & Polo, Michele, 2007. "Buyer power and quality improvements," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 45-61, June.
    6. Harold Creusen & Arno Meijer & Gijsbert Zwart & Henry van der Wiel, 2008. "Static efficiency in Dutch supermarket chain," CPB Document 163, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    7. Symeonidis, George, 2010. "Downstream merger and welfare in a bilateral oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 230-243, May.
    8. Øystein Foros & Hans Jarle Kind, 2008. "Do Slotting Allowances Harm Retail Competition?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(2), pages 367-384, June.
    9. Andre Jungmittag, 2018. "The Direct and Indirect Effects of Product Market Regulations in the Retail Trade Sector," JRC Research Reports JRC112222, Joint Research Centre.
    10. Özlem Bedre-Defolie & Stéphane Caprice, 2011. "Merger Efficiency and Welfare Implications of Buyer Power," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1144, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Gabriel Felbermayr & Benjamin Jung, 2011. "Trade Intermediation and the Organization of Exporters," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 634-648, September.
    12. Horst Raff & Nicolas Schmitt, 2012. "Imports and the structure of retail markets," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(4), pages 1431-1455, November.
    13. Alessandro Bonanno & Carlo Russo & Luisa Menapace, 2018. "Market power and bargaining in agrifood markets: A review of emerging topics and tools," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 6-23, December.
    14. Stéphane Caprice & Vanessa von Schlippenbach, 2008. "Competition policy in a concentrated and globalized retail industry," Post-Print hal-02656654, HAL.
    15. Allain, Marie-Laure & Avignon, Rémi & Chambolle, Claire, 2020. "Purchasing alliances and product variety," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    16. Angela Cheptea & Charlotte Emlinger & Karine Latouche, 2012. "Multinational Retailers and Home Country Exports," Post-Print hal-01208840, HAL.
    17. Johansen, Bjørn Olav, 2012. "The Buyer Power Of Multiproduct Retailers: Competition With One-Stop Shopping," Working Papers in Economics 03/12, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    18. Zhiqi Chen & Hong Ding & Zhiyang Liu, 2016. "Downstream Competition and the Effects of Buyer Power," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(1), pages 1-23, August.
    19. Allain Marie-Laure & Chambolle Claire, 2005. "Loss-Leaders Banning Laws as Vertical Restraints," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-25, February.
    20. Chiara Fumagalli & Massimo Motta, 2008. "Buyers’ Miscoordination, Entry and Downstream Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1196-1222, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    buyer power; retailing; international trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • 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:zbw:ifwkwp:1431. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

    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.