Market Power (market + power)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting

Kinds of Market Power

  • producer market power


  • Selected Abstracts


    MARKET POWER, PRICE ADJUSTMENT, AND INFLATION,

    INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2010
    Allen Head
    We study a monetary search economy in which endogenous fluctuations in market power driven by changes in consumers' search intensity determine the extent of price adjustment to movements in productivity and the money growth rate. A calibrated version of the economy exhibits countercyclical fluctuations in markups and is consistent with the observed incomplete response of nominal prices to cost movements associated with productivity fluctuations and to changes in the money growth rate. Furthermore, a higher average rate of inflation results in a lower average markup and increases the sensitivity of prices to fluctuations in either productivity or money growth. [source]


    QUANTIFYING MARKET POWER IN THE GERMAN WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKET USING A DYNAMIC MULTI-REGIONAL DISPATCH MODEL,

    THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2006
    FELIX MÜSGENS
    This paper quantifies the degree of market power in the German wholesale electricity market. A dispatch model simulates competitive marginal costs. In addition to common input factors like plant capacities, fuel prices and load structures, the model also incorporates international power exchange and dynamic effects like start-up costs and hydro storage plant dispatch. The simulated prices are subsequently used as a benchmark for observed electricity prices. The analysis reveals significant market power in the German electricity market, mainly exhibited during peak periods. Producer surplus is also increased significantly due to strategic behavior. [source]


    Measuring Market Power in the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Industry

    ECONOMETRICA, Issue 2 2001
    Aviv Nevo
    The ready-to-eat cereal industry is characterized by high concentration, high price-cost margins, large advertising-to-sales ratios, and numerous introductions of new products. Previous researchers have concluded that the ready-to-eat cereal industry is a classic example of an industry with nearly collusive pricing behavior and intense nonprice competition. This paper empirically examines this conclusion. In particular, I estimate price-cost margins, but more importantly I am able empirically to separate these margins into three sources: (i) that which is due to product differentiation; (ii) that which is due to multi-product firm pricing; and (iii) that due to potential price collusion. The results suggest that given the demand for different brands of cereal, the first two effects explain most of the observed price-cost margins. I conclude that prices in the industry are consistent with noncollusive pricing behavior, despite the high price-cost margins. Leading firms are able to maintain a portfolio of differentiated products and influence the perceived product quality. It is these two factors that lead to high price-cost margins. [source]


    Measuring Market Power for Food Retail Activities: French Evidence

    JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2000
    Alexandre Gohin
    In this paper we develop and estimate an empirical model of pricing behaviour for food retail firms in both a quantity-setting oligopoly engaged in the joint production of demand-related final goods and a quantity-setting oligopsony for supply-unrelated wholesale goods. The procedure consists of estimating an inverse demand system for the final goods, single supply functions for the wholesale goods and the retail industry first-order profit-maximisation conditions, from which an estimate of the degree of imperfect competition and of oligopoly-oligopsony power for the different commodities can be retrieved. The model is applied to the French food retail industry and three commodities are distinguished: dairy products, meat products and other food products. We strongly reject the hypothesis that French food retail firms behave competitively, and more than 20 and 17 per cent of the wholesale-to-retail price margins for dairy products and meat products, respectively, can be attributed to oligopoly-oligopsony distortions. [source]


    The Impact of the Big 8 Mergers on Market Power: Evidence from the Hong Kong Market

    JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1 2005
    Dominica Suk-yee Lee
    This study examines the impact of the Big 8 mergers on market power in an audit market where the merging firms have little presence. Audit fee changes for each merger participating firm are identified and fee changes for several post-merger years are examined. The pre-merger differential market power between the merging and non-merging long-established Big 8 firms (Price Waterhouse and KPMG Peat Marwick) in Hong Kong provides a unique opportunity to examine whether the mergers could help the merging firms to increase their market power. The results are consistent with the hypotheses that the audit fees of the merging firms were significantly lower than that of the non-merging, long-established Big 8 firms before the mergers, but the audit fees of the merged firms increased significantly to a level comparable with that of the latter group after the mergers. In addition, the market share of the merged firms increased significantly after the mergers. However, no association is found between market concentration and market power. Overall, the results show that the Big 8 mergers have helped the merged firms increase their market power and market share in the Hong Kong audit market where they had little presence. [source]


    Estimating Market Power and Strategies

    JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES A (STATISTICS IN SOCIETY), Issue 4 2009
    Judith Corbyn
    No abstract is available for this article. [source]


    Demand Diversification Under Uncertainty and Market Power

    ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 4 2001
    John J. Y. Seo
    This paper justifies theoretically and empirically the diversification behaviour of an importing firm when it chooses the mixture of potentially differentiated products of its major input under price uncertainty. The paper investigates an equilibrium relationship among three key explanatory variables, which are the expected price, the systematic risk of price, and monopolistic market power of the suppliers in the market. The theoretical section shows that there exists a conflict between the risk,diversification effect and the agent's preference over certain products when the importer chooses the vector of optimal quantity shares. The latter effect may disturb or even dominate the former, which can be represented in an equilibrium relationship similar to the framework of the CAPM. As an empirical application, the Chinese wheat import market is examined and analysed to answer the questions raised by the basic statistics. JEL classification: F12; F14; L22 [source]


    Market power in tobacco: Measuring multiple markets

    AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2007
    Kellie Curry Raper
    Traditional market power analyses of the U.S. cigarette manufacturing industry consider monopoly power exertion by manufacturers in selling cigarettes to consumers. Market characteristics combined with government policy make it plausible that manufacturers exert monopsony market power in procuring tobacco. We investigate this possibility in the U.S. and international tobacco markets by extending nonparametric tests to include simultaneously potential monopoly market power with potential monopsony market power in multiple input markets, allowing both Hicks-neutral and biased technical change. We use annual data from the cigarette manufacturing industry from 1977 to 1993. Results indicate substantial departures from competitive pricing in the procurement of domestic tobacco, supporting the postulate that cigarette manufacturers appropriate monopsony rents despite, and perhaps at times through, U.S. tobacco farm policy. Results are less clear with respect to monopsony market power exertion in imported leaf tobacco procurement by cigarette manufacturers. Finally, results indicate that monopoly market power exertion is relatively small and that, when the possibility of monopsony market power exertion is admitted, monopoly market power exertion is no longer problematic.[EconLit citations: L100, L660]. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 23: 35,55, 2007. [source]


    Market power, price discrimination, and allocative efficiency in intermediate-goods markets

    THE RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2009
    Roman Inderst
    We consider a monopolistic supplier's optimal choice of two-part tariff contracts when downstream firms are asymmetric. We find that the optimal discriminatory contracts amplify differences in downstream firms' competitiveness. Firms that are larger,either because they are more efficient or because they sell a superior product,obtain a lower wholesale price than their rivals. This increases allocative efficiency by favoring the more productive firms. In contrast, we show that a ban on price discrimination reduces allocative efficiency and can lead to higher wholesale prices for,all,firms. As a result, consumer surplus, industry profits, and welfare are lower. [source]


    Food Industrialisation and Food Power: Implications for Food Governance

    DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 5-6 2003
    Tim Lang
    Food supply chains of developed countries industrialised in the second half of the twentieth century, with significant implications for developing countries over policy priorities, the ensuing external costs and the accompanying concentration of market power. Very powerful corporations dominate many sectors. Primary producers are locked into tight specifications and contracts. Consumers may benefit from cheaper food but there are quality implications and health externalities. As consumer confidence has been shaken, new quality agencies have been created. Tensions have emerged about the state's role as facilitator of industrial efficiencies. Food policy is thus torn between the pursuit of productivity and reduced prices and the demand for higher quality, with implications for both producers and consumers in the developing world. [source]


    Factors Determining Net Interest Margins in Australia: Domestic and Foreign Banks

    FINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 3 2007
    Barry Williams
    This study tests the application of the Ho and Saunders (1981) model of bank net interest margins (NIMs), and its subsequent developments, using Australian data. The core elements of this model apply in Australia. Bank market power is found to increase NIMs, consistent with McShane and Sharpe (1985), with evidence of bank buying market share and mispricing for risk. Operating costs also have an important role in determining NIMs, together with implied payments and management quality. Bank NIMs are found to have fallen over the study period. [source]


    Testing the Regulatory Model: The Expansion of Stansted Airport

    FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2004
    DAVID STARKIE
    This paper examines the application of price-cap regulation to the UK airport industry, with particular reference to the expansion of London-Stansted. This expansion is relevant to the debate concerning investment incentives inherent in the RPI,X approach and whether the UK style of regulation encourages the ,sweating of assets' at the expense of new investment. Stansted's expansion also suggests a willingness of the authorities to accept the leveraging of market power in pursuit of perceived public-interest goals; it provides an insight into the behaviour of economic agents when capital market disciplines are mute; and it illustrates some unintended consequences that can follow from market intervention. [source]


    Competition Tests with a Non-Structural Model: the Panzar,Rosse Method Applied to Germany's Savings Banks

    GERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2009
    Horst Gischer
    Banking; competition; market behaviour Abstract. In this paper we adopt the Panzar,Rosse approach to assess the competitive conditions in the German banking market for the period from 1993 to 2002. We suggest several improvements to the empirical application of the approach and show that frequently used empirical models that apply price rather than revenue functions lead to biased results. Using disaggregated annual data from more than 400 savings banks (Sparkassen) the empirical findings indicate monopolistic competition, the cases of monopoly and perfect competition are strongly rejected. Furthermore, small banks seem to enjoy even more market power than larger institutions. [source]


    Consolidations and closures: an empirical analysis of exits from the hospital industry

    HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 5 2007
    Teresa D. Harrison
    Abstract This paper investigates the pre-exit characteristics of hospital mergers, acquisitions, and closures. We estimate competing risk hazard models using an 18-year national data set that spans the wave of closures in the 1980s and of mergers in the 1990s. Evidence shows that weak productivity of the hospital is a strong determinant for closures while competitive pressures are more influential in the decision to consolidate. Thus, increased market power, relative to cost reductions, appears to play a larger role in the merger decision. Our results also provide insight into possible correlations between mergers and closures. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    MARKET POWER, PRICE ADJUSTMENT, AND INFLATION,

    INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2010
    Allen Head
    We study a monetary search economy in which endogenous fluctuations in market power driven by changes in consumers' search intensity determine the extent of price adjustment to movements in productivity and the money growth rate. A calibrated version of the economy exhibits countercyclical fluctuations in markups and is consistent with the observed incomplete response of nominal prices to cost movements associated with productivity fluctuations and to changes in the money growth rate. Furthermore, a higher average rate of inflation results in a lower average markup and increases the sensitivity of prices to fluctuations in either productivity or money growth. [source]


    PRICE DISPERSION, INFLATION, AND WELFARE*

    INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2005
    Allen Head
    We examine the implications of inflation for both price dispersion and welfare in a monetary search economy. In our economy, if the degree of buyers' incomplete information about prices is fixed, both price dispersion and real prices are increasing in inflation. As the inflation rate approaches the Friedman rule, both price dispersion and welfare losses vanish. If households choose the number of prices to observe, then the optimal inflation rate may exceed the Friedman rule as inflation induces search and, up to a point, raises welfare by eroding market power. [source]


    Monopoly and Oligopoly Provision of Addictive Goods

    INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2001
    Robert Driskill
    This article investigates monopoly and oligopoly provision of an addictive good. Consumer preferences are modeled as in Becker and Murphy (1988). Addictive goods have characteristics that create interesting strategic issues when suppliers are noncompetitive. We characterize the perfect Markov equilibrium of a market with noncompetitive supply of an addictive good and compare it with the efficient solution. Depending on particular parameter values, we find a wide variety of possible steady-state outcomes, including ones with output above the efficient level and price below marginal cost. We also find that market power can be disadvantageous. [source]


    On the stabilizing virtues of imperfect competition

    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 4 2005
    Thomas Seegmuller
    D43; E32 We analyze the stabilizing role of imperfect competition on fluctuations as a result of indeterminacy and endogenous cycles. In this paper, imperfect competition is a source of monopoly profits, because of producer market power. Considering an overlapping generations model with capital accumulation and elastic labor supply, we show that under imperfect competition, the emergence of endogenous fluctuations requires a weaker substitution between production factors than under perfect competition. In this sense, imperfect competition stabilizes fluctuations. However, we find an opposite conclusion concerning the elasticity of labor supply. Indeed, endogenous fluctuations are compatible with a less elastic labor supply under imperfect competition. [source]


    Competition and Market Structure of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations

    INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF FINANCE, Issue 3-4 2007
    YOUNGSOO KIM
    ABSTRACT In this paper, we study the relation among market structure, trading costs, and competition in National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ). In particular, we address the following questions: Do NASDAQ dealers exercise market power and extract economic rents in setting bid-ask spread? How persistent is the market power of dominant dealers? Our estimate of the rent is approximately ¢8.76, or 0.54% of stock price. The half-life of the persistence of this rent is approximately 20 months for the entire sample, while the half-life of younger stocks tend to be shorter than those of more mature stocks. Our result supports Schultz: NASDAQ dealers make markets only for stocks where they have competitive advantages in accessing order flow and in information. It might take a while before a market maker poses effective competition to existing dominant market makers. In the meantime, incumbent market makers are able to exercise market power and appear to earn abnormally large profits. [source]


    Global Restructuring and Liberalization: Côte d 'Ivoire and the End of the International Cocoa Market?

    JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 2 2002
    Bruno Losch
    The restructuring of the world cocoa market has concluded with the liberalization of the sector in the world's leading producing country, Côte d'Ivoire, clearing the way for domination by an oligopoly of global companies. This paper describes how Côte d'Ivoire's share of world production created an illusion but not the reality of market power. In the 1990s, in the wake of failed attempts to influence the world market, the Ivorian cocoa sector experienced a series of upheavals that were both pivotal to broader changes in the global market and a refiection of them. The converging strategies of new Ivorianfirms and of the major global grinding companies resulted in increased vertical integration in Côte d'Ivoire, exemplified in the development of ,origin grinding '. Later, financial difficulties encountered by Ivorian firms led to global companies taking control. Amongst the results of these changes are a decline in the role of traders, a redefinition of the relationship between grinders and chocolate manufacturers, and a standardization of cocoa quality around an average ,bulk' level. This signals the end of ,the producing countries' and of the global market. [source]


    In Search of a Competition Policy in a Competitive Economy: The Case of Hong Kong

    JOURNAL OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2003
    SUK-CHING HO
    The authors propose an exploratory framework to study competition policy development in general and apply it in the context of Hong Kong. Competition policy (in the U.S., commonly referred to as antitrust policy) is defined here as concerned with the public policy prohibiting anticompetitive behavior and the abuse of dominant market power on the part of businesses. The framework identifies four core variables that are important in influencing the development and implementation of a competition policy. These variables are the consumer protection agenda, external pressure, the political landscape, and the size of the economy. It is proposed that the way government responded to these forces has been instrumental in shaping how and why the competition policy debate in Hong Kong evolved the way it did. It also underscores the importance of recognizing the indigenous nature in the development of competition policy in any economy. Future research directions to generalize the framework are also suggested. These include further development and expansion of the core variables, contextualization of the framework for cross-national comparisons, and undertaking longitudinal studies to examine the sensitivities of the competition policy to changes in the core forces over time. [source]


    Two-Sided Platforms: Product Variety and Pricing Structures

    JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 4 2009
    Andrei Hagiu
    This paper provides a new modeling framework to analyze two-sided platforms connecting producers and consumers. In contrast to the existing literature, indirect network effects are determined endogenously, through consumers' taste for variety and producer competition. Three new aspects of platform pricing structures are derived.,First, the optimal platform pricing structure shifts towards extracting more rents from producers relative to consumers when consumers have stronger demand for variety, since producers become less substitutable. With platform competition, consumer preferences for variety, producer market power, and producer economies of scale in multihoming also make platforms' price-cutting strategies on the consumer side less effective. This second effect on equilibrium pricing structures goes in the opposite direction relative to the first one.,Third, variable fees charged to producers can serve to trade off producer innovation incentives against the need to reduce a platform holdup problem. [source]


    Vertical Networks, Integration, and Connectivity

    JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 2 2009
    Pinar Do
    This paper studies competition in a network industry with a stylized two layered network structure, and examines: (i) price and connectivity incentives of the upstream networks, and (ii) incentives for vertical integration between an upstream network provider and a downstream firm. The main result of this paper is that vertical integration occurs only if the initial installed-base difference between the upstream networks is sufficiently small, and in that case, industry is configured with two vertically integrated networks, which yields highest incentives to invest in quality of interconnection. When the installed-base difference is sufficiently large, there is no integration in the industry, and neither of the firms have an incentive to invest in quality of interconnection. An industry configuration in which only the large network integrates and excludes (or raises cost of) its downstream rival does not appear as an equilibrium outcome: in the presence of a large asymmetry between the networks, when quality of interconnection is a strategic variable, the large network can exercise a substantial market power without vertical integration. Therefore, a vertically separated industry structure does not necessarily yield procompetitive outcomes. [source]


    A Practitioner's Guide to Estimation of Random-Coefficients Logit Models of Demand

    JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 4 2000
    Aviv Nevo
    Estimation of demand is at the heart of many recent studies that examine questions of market power, mergers, innovation, and valuation of new brands in differentiated-products markets. This paper focuses on one of the main methods for estimating demand for differentiated products: random-coefficients logit models. The paper carefully discusses the latest innovations in these methods with the hope of increasing the understanding, and therefore the trust among researchers who have never used them, and reducing the difficulty of their use, thereby aiding in realizing their full potential. [source]


    Competition and the Quality of Standard Form Contracts: The Case of Software License Agreements

    JOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2008
    Florencia Marotta-Wurgler
    Standard form contracts are pervasive. Many legal academics believe that they are unfair. Some scholars and some courts have argued that sellers with market power or facing little competitive pressure may impose one-sided standard form terms that limit their obligation to consumers. This article uses a sample of 647 software license agreements drawn from many distinct segments of the software industry to empirically investigate the relationship between competitive conditions and the quality of standard form contracts. I find little evidence for the concern that firms with market power, as measured by market concentration or firm market share, require consumers to accept particularly one-sided terms; that is, firms in both concentrated and unconcentrated software market segments, and firms with high and low market share, offer similar terms to consumers. The results have implications for the judicial analysis of standard form contract enforceability. [source]


    Supply response and price volatility in the Greek broiler market

    AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2010
    Anthony N. Rezitis
    The authors examine the supply response of the Greek broiler market. A generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) process is used to estimate expected price and price volatility; price and supply equations are estimated jointly. In addition to the standard GARCH model, several different symmetric, asymmetric, and nonlinear GARCH models are estimated. These models use different conditional variance specifications (linear or nonlinear) to grasp some additional empirical regularity of data like asymmetry. Asymmetric price volatility means that different volatility is recorded in the case of a fall in prices than an increase in prices by the same amount. The possible existence of asymmetry in the producer's price volatility gives useful information about market structure and possible market power. The empirical results indicate that among the estimated GARCH models the nonlinear asymmetric GARCH model (NAGARCH) seems to better describe producers' price volatility of the Greek broiler industry. Furthermore, the empirical findings show that price volatility is an important risk factor and broiler feed price is the most significant cost factor of the supply response function. Finally, the model provides forecasts for quantity supplied, producers' price, and price volatility. [EconLit. Classifications: Q110, C510, D200]. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


    Demand for differentiated milk products: implications for price competition

    AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2009
    Elena Lopez
    The authors apply the Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) model to scan data from Boston supermarkets augmented with consumer characteristics data to analyze consumer choices and price competition in a differentiated fluid milk market. Milk characteristics include price, fat content, brand name, and the organic and/or lactose-free nature of the product. Empirical results show that consumer valuation of fat decreases with income, but increases with the number of children. Low-fat and specialty milks, such as organic and lactose-free milks, are preferred by high-income consumers with no children. Although all milks are price elastic at the individual brand level, the cross-price elasticities are quite low and negligible for specialty milks. Based on calculated Lerner indexes, private label milks have the highest percent markups despite their lower prices, whereas specialty milks have the lowest markups despite their higher prices, which attests to a greater degree of market power for conventional and particularly for private label milk. [JEL Classification: D12, D40, L11, L81]. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


    Structural change and market power in the U.S. food manufacturing sector

    AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 2 2009
    Kyle W. Stiegert
    This study develops an intertemporally linked market model to explore the relationships between price-cost margins, market concentration, and advertising outlay. The study used data from 48 four-digit SIC (standardized industrial classification) codes for the Food and Tobacco Processing Industries during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The authors' findings provide evidence that both high and low levels of performance provide signals to industries to consolidate, but for obvious and different reasons. Further, increased consolidation leads to increased entry barriers (advertising) and higher profits to the industry. Our findings are supportive of both Chicago and Traditionalist Schools of thought about antitrust enforcement: Neither emerges in a dominant position. Endogeneity issues and findings within the intertemporal structure cast considerable doubt about overly simplistic structure,performance paradigms of firm behavior. [JEL Code: L11, L40, L66]. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


    Testing for market power in the Australian grains and oilseeds industries

    AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 3 2007
    Christopher J. O'Donnell
    We formally assess competitive buying and selling behavior in the Australian grains and oilseeds industries using a more realistic empirical model and a less aggregated data set than previously available. We specify a duality model of profit maximization that allows for imperfect competition in both input and output markets and for variable-proportions technologies. Aggregate input-output data are used to define the structure of the relevant industries, and time series data are then used to implement the model for 13 grains and oilseeds products handled by seven groups of agents. The model is estimated in a Bayesian econometrics framework. We find evidence of flour and cereal food product manufacturers exerting market power when purchasing wheat, barley, oats and triticale; beer and malt manufacturers exerting market power when purchasing wheat and barley; and other food product manufacturers exerting market power when purchasing wheat, barley, oats and triticale. [EconLit citations: C11, L66, Q11]. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 23: 349,376, 2007. [source]


    Market power in tobacco: Measuring multiple markets

    AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2007
    Kellie Curry Raper
    Traditional market power analyses of the U.S. cigarette manufacturing industry consider monopoly power exertion by manufacturers in selling cigarettes to consumers. Market characteristics combined with government policy make it plausible that manufacturers exert monopsony market power in procuring tobacco. We investigate this possibility in the U.S. and international tobacco markets by extending nonparametric tests to include simultaneously potential monopoly market power with potential monopsony market power in multiple input markets, allowing both Hicks-neutral and biased technical change. We use annual data from the cigarette manufacturing industry from 1977 to 1993. Results indicate substantial departures from competitive pricing in the procurement of domestic tobacco, supporting the postulate that cigarette manufacturers appropriate monopsony rents despite, and perhaps at times through, U.S. tobacco farm policy. Results are less clear with respect to monopsony market power exertion in imported leaf tobacco procurement by cigarette manufacturers. Finally, results indicate that monopoly market power exertion is relatively small and that, when the possibility of monopsony market power exertion is admitted, monopoly market power exertion is no longer problematic.[EconLit citations: L100, L660]. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 23: 35,55, 2007. [source]