Anticompetitive Effects of a Dominant Retailer’s Guaranteed Profit Margin and Low-Price Contracts
中文摘要
零售商可以坚持与其供应商签订保证利润率合同,即要求每笔销售均获得一定利润率。此外,在存在相互竞争零售商的市场中,它可能希望拥有最低售价;如果这一提供最低价格的策略降低了其利润率,供应商必须补偿差额。近来,关于这种做法是否会导致反竞争行为——如零售价格上升、市场垄断或市场覆盖面缩小——存在争论。我们分析了包含一个供应商和两个零售商的博弈论模型,其中焦点零售商要么采用保证利润率合同,要么采用带最低价格保证的保证利润率合同。我们证明,当产品品类竞争激烈时,保证利润率合同具有反竞争效应:供应商与焦点零售商形成独家分销,与双方均采用批发价格合同的情形相比,导致更高的价格和更低的产品可获得性。然而,如果竞争强度较低,只要供应商设定相同的批发价格,消费者便能以更低的价格获得更广泛的产品而受益;但当供应商设定差异化的批发价格时,价格仍然更高。而带最低价格保证的保证利润率合同则总是通过抑制竞争而导致更高的价格。因此,焦点零售商选择合同类型的能力与产品品类竞争的强度,会导致或有利于或损害消费者的结果。我们的结果有助于为政策制定者采取必要干预措施以缓解反竞争行为提供依据。本文由 Jayashankar Swaminathan(运营管理)接受发表。资助:A. Jain 在本研究中的工作得到了 PSC-CUNY 奖的支持,该奖项由专业职工大会(The Professional Staff Congress)与纽约市立大学(The City University of New York)联合资助。补充材料:在线附录与数据文件可从 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06332 获取。
Abstract
A retailer can insist on a guaranteed margin contract with its supplier, wherein it requires a margin on each sale. In addition, it may want to have the lowest selling price in a market with competing retailers, and if this strategy of offering the lowest price reduces its margin, the supplier must pay up the difference. There has been recent debate on whether this approach leads to anticompetitive behavior with elevated retail prices, monopolistic market, or diminished market coverage. We analyze a game-theoretic model involving a supplier and two retailers where the focal retailer adopts either the guaranteed margin contract or the guaranteed margin contract with lowest price guarantee. We show that when product category competition is intense, the guaranteed margin contract is anticompetitive: The supplier forms an exclusive distribution with the focal retailer leading to higher prices and reduced product access in comparison with when they both adopt a wholesale price contract. However, if the intensity of competition is low, consumers benefit by paying lower prices with wider access as long as the supplier sets identical wholesale prices, but prices remain higher when they set differentiated wholesale prices. The guaranteed margin contract with lowest price guarantee, however, always leads to higher prices by dampening competition. As such, the ability of the focal retailer to choose the contract type and the intensity of product category competition leads to outcomes that can either benefit or hurt consumers. Our results help inform policy makers on the necessary interventions to alleviate anticompetitiveness. This paper was accepted by Jayashankar Swaminathan, operations management. Funding: A. Jain’s work on this research was supported by PSC-CUNY Award jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.06332 .