Market Structure and Organization in Agri-Food Value Chains: An Application to the German Dairy Sector

德国乳制品价值链正在发生深刻的结构性变化，导致供应链各个阶段的代理商日益占主导地位，即在农场层面，在加工商层面和在零售商层面。特别是，零售商的合并增加了零售商对-à-vis供应商的议价能力。在此背景下，本子项目的总体目标是分析乳制品行业的结构变化，特别是在加工商层面，考虑到公司在整个乳制品价值链上的战略互动。到目前为止，还没有理论模型允许分析三层结构中的相互依赖关系，其中三个阶段都考虑了不完全竞争。我们的目标是缩小这一差距，以了解日益占主导地位的零售业如何影响乳制品加工商的战略决策，而这反过来又可能影响奶农。在三层方法的基础上，我们首先考察了加工商是否有并购动机来对抗零售商的议价能力。然后，我们分析了合作社和营利性公司在产品质量和乳制品供应商数量决策方面的差异。最后，我们评估了上游农民的影响，这使德国乳制品行业结构变化的图景更加丰满。

The German dairy value chain is subject to profound structural change resulting in increasingly dominant agents at all stages of the chain, i.e. at the farm level, at the processors’ level and at the retailers’ level. In particular, the consolidation of retailers has increased retailers’ bargaining power vis-à-vis their suppliers. Against this background, the overall objective of this subproject is to analyze the structural change in the dairy sector, particularly at the processors’ level, by taking into account firms’ strategic interactions along the entire dairy value chain. So far, there exists no theoretical workhorse model that allows for the analysis of interdependencies in a three-layer structure where imperfect competition is considered at all three stages. We aim to close this gap to understand how an increasingly dominant retail industry influences strategic decisions at the dairy processors’ level which, in turn, may affect dairy farmers. Building upon a three-layer approach, we first examine whether processors have merger incentives to counter the retailers’ bargaining power. We then analyze the differences between cooperatives and for-profit firms concerning their decision on product quality and the number of dairy suppliers. Finally, we assess the implications for upstream farmers which rounds off the picture of structural change in the German dairy sector.