{"title":"Using Individual-Level Randomized Treatment to Learn about Market Structure","authors":"L. Casaburi, T. Reed","doi":"10.1257/app.20200306","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Interference across competing firms in RCTs can be informative about market structure. An experiment that subsidizes a random subset of traders who buy cocoa from farmers in Sierra Leone illustrates this idea. Interpreting treatment-control differences in prices and quantities purchased from farmers through a model of Cournot competition reveals differentiation between traders is low. Combining this result with quasi-experimental variation in world prices shows that the number of traders competing is 50 percent higher than the number operating in a village. Own-price and cross-price supply elasticities are high. Farmers face a competitive market in this first stage of the value chain. (JEL L13, L14, O13, Q12, Q13)","PeriodicalId":48212,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Journal-Applied Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"10","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Economic Journal-Applied Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20200306","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 10
Abstract
Interference across competing firms in RCTs can be informative about market structure. An experiment that subsidizes a random subset of traders who buy cocoa from farmers in Sierra Leone illustrates this idea. Interpreting treatment-control differences in prices and quantities purchased from farmers through a model of Cournot competition reveals differentiation between traders is low. Combining this result with quasi-experimental variation in world prices shows that the number of traders competing is 50 percent higher than the number operating in a village. Own-price and cross-price supply elasticities are high. Farmers face a competitive market in this first stage of the value chain. (JEL L13, L14, O13, Q12, Q13)
期刊介绍:
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics publishes papers covering a range of topics in applied economics, with a focus on empirical microeconomic issues. In particular, we welcome papers on labor economics, development microeconomics, health, education, demography, empirical corporate finance, empirical studies of trade, and empirical behavioral economics.