1、 原文Chain-Store Pricing for Strategic AccommodationThe chain store has been one of the principal factors in the movement towards the simplification of distributive functions As such it has caused pronounced concern among manufactures jobbers and retailers It has been the subject of litigation of recr

2、imination and of endless discussion The manufacturer has hesitated to make full use of the chain store system as an outlet because of his desire not to offend the members of his regular distributive systems The jobber has made open war upon the chain because it has frankly attempted to supplant him

3、and to independent retailer has often failed to recognize the decisive line of division between price merchandising and service merchandisingEvery concern which ultimately markets its products to the consumer is vitally affected by the status of chain retailing more particularly with the position wh

4、ich it will occupy in the future The following pages contain a brief resume of the present chain store situation in the fields of retailing where it has become well establishedTrends of developmentThe most rapid growth of the chain store has taken place in the grocery drug dry goods tobacco and conf

5、ectionery lines It is essential to understand the reasons for thisThe public demand in these lines is well defined is not subject to great fluctuation in times of business depression and in each case there is a repeat marketThe articles handled fall mainly in the class of necessities or semi-necessi

6、ties That is they are regarded as essential by a proportion of the market large enough to insure a steady demandBecause of the standard character of the stocks and the broad demand a high rate of turnover may be maintained which allows the chain to make a small but steady margin of profit at frequen

7、t intervalsBuying or purchasing is standardized and centralized at headquartersSince articles are of small unit value and not bulky or heavy the chain store is able to operate on a cash and carry basis-a factor of great importance in chain store growthMerchandising is largely a matter of display and

8、 price advertisingStandardization of methods has made it possible to centralize management at headquarters and control member stores under managers who while they may have a pecuniary interest in sales made by their stores have nothing to say about the conducting of themOur analytic focus in this pa

9、per is the geographic scope of pricing Specifically is it better for a chain-store retailer to set prices according to local market conditions reflecting differences in cost demand and competition or set common prices that apply across all its stores ie adopt a uniform pricing policy Are likely firm

10、 decisions on this in line with consumer preferences In contrast to the entry deterrence issue considered by Selten 1978 Milgrom and Roberts 1982 and Kreps and Wilson 1982 we look to see whether pricing policy other than deterring entry might instead be employed strategically to accommodate entry wh

11、en it is inevitable The geographic scope for pricing is a very real issue for multiple retailers It is evident that in practice some chain-store groups adopt uniform pricing while others do not In some sectors all multiple retailers price identically across their stores eg UK electrical goods retail

12、ers MMC 1997ab While in other sectors local pricing is practised to the extent that product prices might vary considerably from one store to another eg the FTC found that for office supply superstores average prices varied by as much 16 depending on the extent of local competition in the US Moreover

13、 this pricing policy distinction applies not just to different sectors but can apply within the same sector eg amongst UK supermarkets where of the leading fifteen groups eight priced uniformly while seven priced according to local conditions Competition Commission 2000 Yet in these days of computer

14、-based pricing systems it can hardly be said that ticketing costs are high or that local demand and cost conditions cannot be effectively gauged Hence choosing a uniform price must be seen as a conscious act Of course uniform pricing might not be practicable when retailing costs are substantially di

15、fferent from one area to another Nevertheless for many multiple retailers both local and uniform pricing might be feasible but a choice has to be made on which to adopt This leads to two questions first why it might ever be preferable for the incumbent to impose a constraint on its own behaviour and

16、 second the circumstances under which the constraint is desirable Our key insight on the first question is as follows A firm will find itself more under competition in some markets than others By practicing uniform pricing it softens competition between itself and rival players This entails setting

17、a higher price in those markets subject to more competition at the expense of lower prices in markets where it is not subject or is less subject to competition compared with a practice of market-specific pricing The higher price in turn makes the action one which rivals find attractive so it does no

18、t require agreement Thus if the markets under competition are important enough to the firm its net gain is positive Hence our papers prime focus is on the parameters associated with the nature and intensity of competition that might influence this choice There is some commonality in this issue with

19、related questions on third-degree price discrimination in oligopoly eg Holmes 1989 More specifically the issues raised here tie in with why oligopolistic firms would wish to limit or even entirely avoid price discrimination eg Winter 1997 and Corts 1998 or adopt practices which provide the same outc

20、ome notably contemporaneous MFC clauses eg DeGraba 1987 and Besanko and Lyon 1993 There are obvious links between our paper and Corts 1998 which also considers the question of uniform versus discriminatory pricing under duopoly within a rather different framework However in Corts model it turns out

21、that it is usually not in a firms unilateral interest to practise uniform pricing Therefore where uniform pricing is profitable strategic commitments not to price discriminate are normally involved and hence discussion focuses on the form these might take By contrast within our framework and for a s

22、pecified range of parameters we find that it is in the firms own interest not to discriminate and that uniform pricing arises as an equilibrium strategy This is important and provides a new insight because it means that uniform pricing need not be accompanied by evidence of strategic commitment to t

23、hat policy in order for it to be worthwhile and practised 1 IntroductionOur result that firms can commonly be better off under a uniform pricing regime casts an interesting light on some other previous models The result is not new - it was first encountered in Holmes 1989 weak market-strong market m

24、odel of price discrimination in oligopoly However in their investigation of a model similar to Holmes Armstrong and Vickers 2001 find that if a market is sufficiently competitive profits always increase with discrimination This leads them to conclude that Holmes result that profits may fall with dis

25、crimination requires markets to be reasonably uncompetitive p 597 Our model shows this is not completely true In our framework which in effect has a weak and a strong market profits may fall with discrimination whatever the degree of competition That is however uncompetitive the market uniform prici

26、ng can be profitable What is required for this is each individual monopoly market in our context to be sufficiently largeTo consider how different competitive conditions affect the scope-of-pricing decision the model developed here has an incumbent monopoly chain-store operating across a finite numb

27、er of local markets analogous to Seltens well-known chain-store paradox analysis However in contrast to Seltens framework these local markets are assumed to differ in respect of the scale of consumer demand and this in turn affects entry conditions There are two market types In each of the larger af

28、fluent markets entry barriers are insufficient to prevent entry by a new independent rival Yet in smaller less affluent markets the chain-store is taken to have a protected monopoly position arising from natural or institutional barriers In this setting we show that a chain-store would not necessari

29、ly prefer to use local pricing as a profit-enhancing price discrimination tool Competitive conditions exist in the form of a region trading off the degree of substitutability between entrant and incumbents products and the degree to which duopoly markets are larger than monopoly markets Under these

30、conditions the chain-store would prefer to commit to a policy of uniform pricing since this allows for softer competition in contested local markets and hence raises its aggregate profits While the prospect of strategic accommodation through dampening price competition influences the preference betw

31、een local or national pricing a chain-stores choice is not inevitably at variance with that preferred by society In particular a stores willingness to commit to national pricing can in certain circumstances not only enhance its profits but also raise social welfare if not consumer surplus Yet market

32、 conditions commonly exist under which welfare would be adversely affected by the chain-store following its preferred choice Although our model is undoubtedly specific the results are considerably more general Our general results are 1 that under a range of conditions including very competitive mark

33、ets uniform pricing is privately optimal both for incumbent and entrant without co-ordination and 2 that enforcing uniform pricing where firms would prefer local pricing by no means necessarily advances social welfare The significance of the first is that existing papers have concentrated heavily on

34、 co-ordinated action on uniform pricing By contrast policy has often focused on whether firms practice uniform pricing viewing this with approval something in conflict with our second point The remainder of the paper is organised as follows Section 2 discusses the analytical framework whereby an inc

35、umbent chain-store retailer faces certain entry in a fixed number of its local monopoly markets As with the original Selten story entry into such contested markets is in each case by an independent non-affiliated local retailer Section 3 then examines and compares the outcomes where the chain-store

36、uses local pricing against where it adopts a uniform national pricing approach Section 4 addresses consumer welfare considerations Section 5 concludes the paper2 The FrameworkFollowing Selten and others we consider the situation of a chain-store retailer holding a monopoly position in a finite numbe

37、r of independent local markets In each market there is one potential entrant should that firm enter post-entry competition would be characterised by the Bertrand-Nash outcome in a duopoly pricing game Complete information applies and it is assumed that the incumbent has no cost or demand advantage o

38、ver the entrant or vice versa In this situation entry is inevitable in each local market when entry costs are low at least when there is some minimal differentiation between the firms allowing for positive returns for the entrant and when there are no institutional impediments such as planning restr

39、ictions that prevent new stores being opened However if entry costs are substantial or there are no available sites then the local market is blockaded and entry does not occur Our key departure from the previous literature is that we allow entry not be viable in all local markets That is for the N m

40、arkets originally held by the chain-store we assume that M N are blockaded or otherwise provide insufficient demand for two firms but that the remainder C N M can become contested by virtue of becoming local duopolies The relevance of this assumption will become apparent from the analysis We have a

41、two-stage game depicted in Figure 1 In the first stage each entrant simultaneously decides whether or not to enter we illustrate with only two markets and potential entrants Then in the second stage the incumbent decides pricing policy whether to practice local L or uniform U pricing There is no com

42、mitment stage The equilibrium concept is subgame perfection Hence in determining its move the entrant eg E1 knows the payoffs facing the incumbent I as its aggregated profits PI knows that the incumbent will choose the path that is the more profitable However because an entrant does not know how man

43、y other entrants will enter for certain given simultaneous entry moves it will not necessarily know whether the incumbent will practise local or uniform pricingSource Paul W Dobson and Michael Waterson April 2003Chain-Store Pricing for Strategic Accommodation The university of warwick Department of

44、Economica in its series The Wateick Economics Research Paper Series TWERPS with number 677 PP1-4譯文連鎖店的定價策略市場環境的變動對連鎖店分布主要因素之一引起已主體成為沒完沒了的討論制造商充分利用連鎖店系統作為出口價格商品銷售和服務的銷售活動每個關心最終市場的產品給消費者都會受到連鎖店狀態重大的影響特別是未來將會占有的分布情況本文以下的內容包括一個簡短的摘要以說明目前連鎖店在連鎖業領域的發展情況以及它將會有什么樣好的建設發展趨勢連鎖店的快速增長發生在雜貨店藥物干貨煙草和糖果行至關重要的原因1在這些行

45、中公共需求不受經濟不景氣的時候業務有一個重復的市場文章主們被認為是基本的市場中所占比例足夠大以確保穩定的需求3由于存貨的標準特征為儲備和廣泛的需求保持了很高的流動比率從而允許連鎖店一個規模但穩定的盈利 購買或購買標準化集中在總部 購貨很大程度上是一種示和價格廣告標準化的方法有可能集中在總部的管理和控制下經理人本分析重點地域定價范圍具體地說是零售商連鎖店更好根據當地市場條件價格 反不同的成本需求和競爭 或在所有申請店面建立的價格即采用一個統一的定價政策公司這個決定符合消費者的喜好澤爾滕 1978 爾格姆和羅伯茨 1982 年 和和威爾遜 1982 問題相比我們想看看否定價政策上威懾條目 可能相反

46、的時候使用以適應不可避免多零售商地域范圍的價格是很實際的問題實際上很明顯是某連鎖業采用統一的定價但卻不會在某些領域所有的多個零售商的價格一致例如在英國零售商的商店而在其他的行業當地的定價從一家商店到另一在產品價格可能相差很大貿易委員會發現對于辦公用品平均價格修改16取決于在美國本地競爭的程度各不相同這種價格政策不僅適用于區別不同部門申請在相同的部門 例如在英國超級市場的位置十五的八個價格統一而七定價根據當地條件競爭委員會 2000年 然而 基于計算機的定價系統的天可以幾乎說成是票務成本很高或本地需求和成本條件不能有效地衡量因此選擇一個統一的價格必須看作是一種有意識的行為當然當零售成本從一個地方到另一個地方還完全不同的統一的定價不過對于很多零售商行得通不過要采用上出的一種選擇這會導致出現兩個問題 首先為什么它可能永遠受現任征收而抑制自己的行為其次在某些情況下約束是可取的我們對第一個問題的關鍵性認知如下一個公司將會發現自己在市場競爭中比其他通過實踐統一定價使與競爭對手之間的競爭變得這就意味著在那些競爭市場中要樹立高的價格特定市場的定價的做法較低的價格不受市場反過來更高的價格競爭對手所以它不需要協議因此是否足夠重要的是該公司在市場競爭條件下其公司凈收益是正的的主要重點可能會影響這種選擇參數在寡頭壟斷這一問