Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Economics Research Institute Study Paper

Volume

15

Publisher

Utah State University Department of Economics

Publication Date

2002

Rights

Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact the Institutional Repository Librarian at digitalcommons@usu.edu.

First Page

1

Last Page

28

Abstract

This paper incorporates inventory dynamics into an analysis of market power. Using a model in which each fIrm accounts for the effect of its current action on the current and future actions of itself and its competitors, we show that measures of market power that ignore inventory dynamics are biased. We then apply the model to the beef-packing industry using annual data on cattle stocks, slaughter and prices from 1933-1999. Our estimates suggest that static measures overestimate the amount of market power exerted by beef-packing fIrms.

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