Buyer power and price discrimination: the case of the UK care homes market

Ruth Hancock and Morten Hviid

No 2010-39, ISER Working Paper Series from Institute for Social and Economic Research

Abstract: UK Local Authorities purchase care home places on behalf of a large group of people following a means test of their income and wealth. All other buyers of care home services are atomistic. The care home market is characterised by a large number of small providers. Local authorities may thus have buyer power. We show that any abuse of this buyer power may lead to some people, 'the squeezed middle' not being served. We quantify the size of the squeezed middle and assess the implications of the form of the means test for local authorities' ability to exercise buyer power.

Date: 2010-12-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-ind
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/fi ... ers/iser/2010-39.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ese:iserwp:2010-39

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Publications Office, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK
https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/publications/

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISER Working Paper Series from Institute for Social and Economic Research Publications Office, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jonathan Nears ().