Local Market Structure and Strategic Organizational Form Choices: Evidence from Gasoline Stations
Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics, Working Paper No. 311, March 2012
41 Pages Posted: 17 Mar 2012
Date Written: March 23, 2012
Abstract
An extensive literature shows that agency issues and transactions costs influence vertical integration. Another mature literature indicates that market structure influences competitive behavior. However, less consideration has been given to how vertical integration and market structure may interact. I address this gap by focusing on the potential for moral hazard caused by intra-firm competition in retail gasoline markets. I argue that when multiple stations share a common brand in a market, a vertically separated station has an incentive to deviate from the cooperative strategy that the brand-owning refiner would prefer. I empirically test this prediction using rich data, and find evidence of such moral hazard. Moreover, I find that refiners behave in a way consistent with the desire to minimize it: They are more likely to employ vertically separated contracts in markets where the number of affiliated stations is small.
Keywords: Gasoline, moral hazard, vertical contracting, price setting
JEL Classification: D2, L14, L22, L81
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Entry Deterring Capacity in the Texas Lodging Industry
By Michael Conlin and Vrinda Kadiyali
-
Organizational Form and Performance: Evidence from the Hotel Industry
By Renata Kosova, Francine Lafontaine, ...
-
Ownership Structure, Profit Maximization, and Competitive Behavior
By Brian T. Mccann and Govert Vroom
-
The Rational of Plural Forms: An Empirical Study at the Chain Level
By Didier Chabaud, Arnaud Lavit D'hautefort, ...
-
Ownership Structure, Profit Maximization, and Competitive Behavior
By Govert Vroom and Brian T. Mccann
-
Agency and Compensation: Evidence from the Hotel Industry
By Matthew Freedman and Renata Kosova
-
Multi-Unit Franchising: A Comparative Case Analysis
By Dildar Hussain and Josef Windsperger