American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Vertical Relationships and Competition in Retail Gasoline Markets: Empirical Evidence from Contract Changes in Southern California: Comment
American Economic Review
vol. 100,
no. 3, June 2010
(pp. 1269–76)
Abstract
In a paper in the March 2004 AER, Justine Hastings concludes that the acquisition of an independent gasoline retailer, Thrifty, by a vertically integrated firm, ARCO, is associated with sizable price increases at competing stations. To better understand the mechanism to which she attributes this effect -- which combines vertical integration and rebranding -- we attempted but ultimately failed to reproduce the results using alternative data.Citation
Taylor, Christopher T., Nicholas M. Kreisle, and Paul R. Zimmerman. 2010. "Vertical Relationships and Competition in Retail Gasoline Markets: Empirical Evidence from Contract Changes in Southern California: Comment." American Economic Review, 100 (3): 1269–76. DOI: 10.1257/aer.100.3.1269JEL Classification
- L13 Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
- L22 Firm Organization and Market Structure
- L42 Vertical Restraints; Resale Price Maintenance; Quantity Discounts
- L71 Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Hydrocarbon Fuels
- L81 Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce