PRODUCT VARIETY AND COMPETITION IN THE RETAIL MARKET FOR EYEGLASSES -super-*

Randal Watson

Journal of Industrial Economics, 2009, vol. 57, issue 2, pages 217-251

Abstract: ABSTRACT I use original data on eyewear retailers in a cross-section of U.S. markets to study how firms' product range choices vary with the degree of local competition. Market level regressions show average per firm variety declining in the number of rivals. In regressions at the firm level, taking account of spatial differentiation within each market, a non-monotonic relationship between product ranges and competition is apparent. As the number of nearby rivals increases, per firm variety may first rise before eventually declining. Explanations for this pattern are offered, in terms of a tradeoff between business stealing and clustering effects. Copyright 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. and the Editorial Board of The Journal of Industrial Economics.

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6451.2009.00381.x link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jindec:v:57:y:2009:i:2:p:217-251

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0022-1821

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Industrial Economics is edited by Pierre Regibeau, Yeon-Koo Che, Kenneth Corts, Thomas Hubbard, Patrick Legros and Frank Verboven

More articles in Journal of Industrial Economics from Blackwell Publishing
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().