{"title":"How firms compete when they set identical prices: Nonprice strategies in the Indian biscuit industry","authors":"Gianluca Antonecchia, Ajay Bhaskarabhatla","doi":"10.1111/jems.12518","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>How do firms compete when all firms in an industry set identical prices? Using Nielsen data on India's biscuit manufacturers, we document productivity-based competition on nonprice strategies under industry-wide uniform pricing. Products with one standard deviation higher quantity-based productivity contain, on average, 13% more quantity per pack for the same price. Productivity also positively correlates with promotions on pack size, availability, and variety. A higher price (per pack size) sensitivity in rural markets combined with industry-wide uniform pricing imposes a greater burden on rural consumers. Additional analyses show that firms can reduce this burden by selling different pack sizes in urban and rural areas.</p>","PeriodicalId":47931,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","volume":"32 4","pages":"733-756"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jems.12518","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Economics & Management Strategy","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jems.12518","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
How do firms compete when all firms in an industry set identical prices? Using Nielsen data on India's biscuit manufacturers, we document productivity-based competition on nonprice strategies under industry-wide uniform pricing. Products with one standard deviation higher quantity-based productivity contain, on average, 13% more quantity per pack for the same price. Productivity also positively correlates with promotions on pack size, availability, and variety. A higher price (per pack size) sensitivity in rural markets combined with industry-wide uniform pricing imposes a greater burden on rural consumers. Additional analyses show that firms can reduce this burden by selling different pack sizes in urban and rural areas.