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经历深刻的结构性变化，导致在价值链的各个阶段，即在农场一级、加工商一级和零售商一级，越来越多的代理商占据主导地位。特别是，零售商的合并增加了零售商与供应商讨价还价的能力。在此背景下，该分项目的总体目标是分析乳制品部门的结构变化，特别是在加工商一级，同时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，还没有一个理论上的主力模型，可以分析在三层结构中的相互依存关系，其中不完全竞争被认为是在所有三个阶段。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品加工商的战略决策，这反过来又可能影响奶农。基于三层的方法，我们首先研究加工商是否有合并的动机，以对抗零售商的议价能力。然后，我们分析了合作社和营利性企业之间的差异，他们对产品质量和乳制品供应商的数量的决定。最后，我们评估了对上游农民的影响，这四舍五入的结构性变化在德国乳制品行业的图片。

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.