Supermarket fluid milk pricing practices in the western United States

Hoy Carman and Richard J. Sexton
Additional contact information
Richard J. Sexton: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616, Postal: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616

Agribusiness, 2005, vol. 21, issue 4, 509-530

Abstract: This study analyzes retail milk pricing by supermarkets and marketing margin behavior for four fluid milk products in nine large metropolitan markets in the Western United States. Multiple empirical approaches are utilized to investigate retailer pricing behavior, and, on balance, these methods provide significant evidence of noncompetitive price behavior in each of the markets. Correlations of retail price changes indicate considerable pricing independence among retailers across cities, while rankings of retail prices by milk product provide significant evidence that prices are not based primarily on costs, as would be true if pricing were competitive. Estimated retail price responses to farm price changes are consistent with monopoly pricing behavior for several of the milk products in several of the markets. [EconLit Citations: L660, L810]. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 21: 509-530, 2005.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/agr.20062 Link to full text; subscription required (text/html)

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:wly:agribz:v:21:y:2005:i:4:p:509-530

DOI: 10.1002/agr.20062

Access Statistics for this article

Agribusiness is currently edited by Ronald W. Cotterill

More articles in Agribusiness from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().