Empirical Analysis of Vertical Contracting in Intermediate Goods Markets

中间产品是出售给另一家公司而不是最终客户的产品。大多数公司销售中间产品。中间产品市场不同于最终产品市场。不同之处包括买家更加老练，交易的订单规模很大，以及买家经常在最终产品市场上相互竞争。这些差异影响了买家和卖家之间的关系：与最终客户相比，中间产品市场中的买家更有可能就价格进行谈判，而不是接受给定的价格。因此，(相同产品的)价格更有可能因买家而异-这种做法被称为价格歧视；例如，不同地点或不同订单规模的买家最终支付的单位价格不同。很好地理解中间产品市场竞争的重要性。经济学理论告诉我们，中间企业的竞争行为影响着供应链的效率、利润的分配，以及供应链中任何阶段的横向竞争的有效性。中级公司在竞争政策中受到不同的对待。保护小型下游企业的愿望导致了一些国家禁止价格歧视。在合并政策中，大买家的存在可以被用作支持上游合并的理由。尽管它很重要，但对中间产品市场竞争的实证分析很少。这与(I)最近发展的理论文献和(Ii)关于最终消费者价格的大型实证文献形成了鲜明对比。填补这一空白的研究可能会产生很大的影响。缺乏对中间定价的实证研究是很容易解释的：对最终消费者的价格通常是公开的，但对下游公司的价格不是公开的(它们是与每个买家私下协商的)。我们的目标是使用中间产品交易的独特数据集对中间定价进行实证研究。我们有三个主要目标。首先，通过比较其他理论模型的预测性能，建立(目前缺乏的)关于中间市场竞争的证据基础。第二，评估具体的竞争模型，使我们能够评估反事实政策，并就价格歧视和合并等主题得出竞争政策的结论。第三，开发适合于中间产品市场数据的新的量化技术。我们使用来自特定行业的数据，这是竞争实证分析中的既定做法。这些数据综合了英国四大砖厂的交易和成本数据。200多万份交易记录包含2001-06年间的价格、数量、砖块特征、制造厂(地点)和交付地点。我们的初步工作发现了有趣的价格歧视模式，这取决于买家的规模和地点。我们有三个广泛的研究问题。首先，数据支持哪些中间定价理论模型？其次，预测的定价影响有多重要？第三，政策反事实的评估：例如，在描述定价的理论模型下，禁止上游企业的价格歧视是加剧竞争还是软化竞争？为了保证稳健的研究方法，我们采用了两种研究方法：非结构性回归分析和结构模型。我们认为这些都是互补的；每个都利用了数据中的替代特征。选择研究方法的目的是为了提供既有经验依据又有理论上可解释的分析。这将确保我们以可信的方式解决中间产品市场定价文献中的证据差距，从而对学术和政策受众产生最大影响。

An intermediate product is one that is sold to another firm rather than to a final customer. Most firms sell intermediate products. Intermediate product markets differ from final product markets. Differences include the greater sophistication of the buyers, the large order-size of the transactions, and the fact that the buyers are often in competition with each other in the final product market. These differences affect the relationship between buyers and sellers: buyers in an intermediate goods market are more likely to negotiate over prices, rather than take prices as given, compared to final customers. As a result, prices (for the same product) are more likely to vary across buyers---a practice known as price discrimination; e.g. buyers in different locations, or with different order size, end up paying different prices per unit. A good understanding of intermediate goods market competition matters. Economic theory tells us the competitive behaviour of intermediate firms affects the efficiency of the supply chain, the distribution of profits, and the effectiveness of horizontal competition at any stage in the chain. Intermediate firms are treated differently in competition policy. The desire to protect small downstream firms has led to prohibition of price discrimination in some countries. In merger policy, the presence of large buyers can be used as an argument favouring upsteam merger. Despite its importance, there has been very little empirical analysis of intermediate goods market competition. This is in contrast to (i) the recently developed theoretical literature and (ii) the large empirical literature on prices to final consumers. Research that fills this gap is likely to have a high impact. The lack of empirical work on intermediate pricing can be readily explained: prices to final consumers are typically public, but prices to downstream firms are not (they are negotiated privately with each buyer).We aim to study intermediate pricing empirically using a unique dataset of transactions for intermediate products. We have three principal objectives. First, to build up the (currently scant) evidence base on competition in intermediate markets, by comparing the predictive performance of alternative theoretical models. Second, to estimate specific models of competition that allow us to evaluate counterfactual policy and draw conclusions for competition policy, on topics such as price discrimination and mergers. Third, to develop new quantitative techniques suited for data from intermediate goods markets.We use data from a specific industry, the established practice in empirical analysis of competition. The data combine transaction and cost data for the four largest UK brick manufacturers. More than 2 million transaction records contain prices, volumes, brick characteristics, manufacturing plant (location), and delivery location, for the period 2001-06. Our preliminary work has found interesting patterns of price discrimination, depending on the sizes and locations of buyers.We have three broad research questions. First, which theoretical models of intermediate pricing are supported by the data? Second, how important are the pricing effects predicted? Third, the evaluation of policy counterfactuals: e.g., given the theoretical model that describes pricing, would prohibition of price discrimination by upstream firms intensify or soften competition?To guarantee a robust research approach we employ two research methods: non-structural regression analysis and structural modelling. We see these as complementary; each exploits alternative features in the data. The choice of research methods is driven by the aim of delivering analysis that is both empirically robust and theoretically interpretable. This will ensure that we address the evidence gap in the literature on pricing in intermediate goods markets in a credible way that makes the greatest impact on academic and policy audiences.