Empirical Analysis of Vertical Contracting in Intermediate Goods Markets

中间产品是卖给另一个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。不同之处包括买方更老练，交易的订单规模大，以及买方在最终产品市场上往往相互竞争。这些差异影响了买卖双方之间的关系：与最终客户相比，中间产品市场的买家更有可能就价格进行谈判，而不是接受既定的价格。因此，价格（对于同一产品）更有可能在不同的买家之间有所不同-这种做法被称为价格歧视;例如，不同地点的买家，或不同的订单规模，最终支付不同的单位价格。充分理解中间产品市场竞争的重要性。经济理论告诉我们，中间企业的竞争行为影响供应链的效率、利润分配以及供应链任何阶段的横向竞争的有效性。在竞争政策中，中间企业受到不同的待遇。保护小型下游企业的愿望导致一些国家禁止价格歧视。在兼并政策中，大买主的存在可作为赞成上游兼并的理由。尽管它的重要性，有很少的实证分析，中间产品市场竞争。这与（一）最近发展的理论文献和（二）关于对最终消费者的价格的大量经验文献形成对照。填补这一空白的研究可能会产生很大的影响。缺乏中间定价的实证工作可以很容易地解释：最终消费者的价格通常是公开的，但下游企业的价格不是（他们私下与每个买家谈判）。我们有三个主要目标。第一，通过比较其他理论模型的预测性能，建立关于中间市场竞争的（目前缺乏的）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，并得出竞争政策的结论，如价格歧视和合并。第三，开发适合于中间产品市场数据的新的定量技术。我们使用来自特定行业的数据，这是实证分析竞争的惯例。该数据结合了联合收割机的交易和成本数据的四个最大的英国砖制造商。2001- 2006年期间，超过200万笔交易记录包含价格、数量、砖块特征、制造厂（地点）和交货地点。我们的初步工作发现了价格歧视的有趣模式，这取决于购买者的规模和地点。首先，哪些中间定价理论模型得到了数据的支持？第二，预测的定价效应有多重要？第三，评估政策反事实：例如，根据描述定价的理论模型，禁止上游公司的价格歧视会加强还是削弱竞争？为了保证一个强大的研究方法，我们采用两种研究方法：非结构回归分析和结构建模。我们认为这些是互补的;每一个都利用了数据中的替代特征。研究方法的选择是由提供分析的目的驱动的，既有经验上的可靠性，又有理论上的可解释性。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缺口，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.