Market Consolidation and Pricing Developments in Grocery Retailing: A Case Study

Ratula Chakraborty, Paul Dobson, Jonathan S. Seaton and Michael Waterson

Chapter 1 in The Analysis of Competition Policy and Sectoral Regulation, 2014, pp 3-29 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: When large retailers merge, there is a concern that a sudden and marked increase in concentration will alter the intensity and nature of price competition to the detriment of consumers. This chapter considers just such a situation in regard to UK grocery retailing, which has witnessed steadily increasing concentration over recent years, advanced by a series of mergers. Specifically, we examine the nature of price competition amongst the major “one-stop-shop” retail chains before, during, and after the Safeway/Morrison merger in March 2004.We find the merger offered consumers an immediate windfall benefit — with average prices falling straight after the merger — and more intriguingly appears to have led to (or at least is associated with) a marked change in the character of price competition in the market.

Keywords: Competition Policy; Sectoral Regulation; Pattern Asymmetry; Market Consolidation; Grocery Retailing; Pricing Developments; Industry Structure; Price Effects of Mergers; Input Price Shocks; Quantity Discounts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814616362_0001 (application/pdf)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789814616362_0001 (text/html)
Ebook Access is available upon purchase.

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:wsi:wschap:9789814616362_0001

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in World Scientific Book Chapters from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().