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We use grocery data from Norway and COVID-19 border closings to gauge the effect of cross-border shopping on commodity tax revenue. Detailed store-category level data identify differential treatment effects that depend on distance to Swedish stores. Economically significant effects extend to up to two hours’ drive from the border, and even further for prominent cross-border shopping products as beer, cigarettes and soda. Across all products, cross-border shopping decreases tax revenue from VAT by 3.6% at the national level. National commodity tax revenue from carbonated soft drinks (subject to a sugar tax) is reduced by 8.1% and from cigarettes by 11.9%.

We analyze 69 entries and relocations by the Norwegian discount variety chain Europris during the period 2016 to 2019. We measure how its location choices affect local grocery stores’ performance, using a diff-in-diff strategy and data from a large Norwegian grocery chain. We combine detailed data on local grocery stores’ sales, traffic and travelling distance to new or relocated Europris stores. We find that entries and relocations have significant effects, suggesting an S-shaped relationship; sufficiently close entries increase local demand since more customers are attracted to the market, but, as the distance increases, the competitive effect of a new discount variety store dominates, and local grocery sales and traffic are reduced. As we move further away, the entry effect is gradually reduced to zero. We show that this empirical finding can be squared with a simple theoretical model. Our results confirm theoretical conjectures on agglomeration forces and competitive effects from local competition.

Masteroppgave i musikkvitenskap - Nord universitet 2021

This chapter provides new numbers on retail concentration and grocery store availability in Norway. We compare Norway to the other Scandinavian countries and, in particular, to Sweden. Retail concentration is high, and highest in the countries with the highest distribution costs. As opposed to the neighboring countries, none of the internationally owned food chains are established in Norway. Decomposing concentration numbers on the county level in Sweden and Norway, we find concentration in Sweden to be highest in the most rural counties, with low population density. In Norway, we find highest concentration in some of the most central counties in the south of Norway, where population density is much higher than in the rest of the country. We also provide new numbers on the geographical distribution of grocery stores and grocery chains across Sweden and Norway. We find interesting new numbers on grocery store availability when comparing the two countries. Although Norway has more than twice as many grocery stores per inhabitant, the number of available stores within ten minutes’ travelling time is surprisingly similar across the two countries. In fact, if we disregard the Norwegian capital area, the store availability is even more equal across Swedish and Norwegian counties. Our results indicate that store density may be too high in the Norwegian capital area. This result is reinforced by the fact that Norwegian consumers in the capital area have access to Swedish border supermarkets with significantly lower prices and higher product variety within just 90 minutes’ driving time.

We estimate a structural model to uncover the degree of competition in retail gasoline markets using daily station-level data on quantity and price from the Swedish market. The structural model enables us to consider key features on both the demand and supply side that are important when evaluating retailers’ ability to obtain market power. Endowed with station-level information on service level, contractual form and number of nearby stations, we take into account the main drivers of differentiation in the local market. Our findings suggest that retailers in general exercise significant intermediate levels of market power. Further, local station characteristics significantly affect to which extent stations are able to extract market power. Results are robust to different estimation methods.

The digitisation of society has posed a challenge to news outlets. Seeking advertising revenues and facing competition for the attention of their readers, many news outlets entered the digital era with unrestricted access to their online content. More recently, news outlets have sought to restrict the amount of content available for free. We quantify the impact of introducing a paywall on the demand for news in Norway. The short-run average impact of a paywall is negative and between 3 and 4%, in the long run the effect increases to between 9 and 11%. We find heterogeneity in the response to paywalls. The largest news outlet within its market experiences larger effects than the other news outlets. After introducing a paywall, the largest news outlets face a long-run reduction in demand between 13 and 15%, as compared to the others who experience a decrease of between 8 and 11%. The timing of introducing a paywall does not seem to affect the demand response very much.

This paper examines the effect of cross-border shopping on grocery demand in Norway using monthly store×category sales data from Norway’s largest grocery chain 2011-2016. The sensitivity of demand to foreign price is hump-shaped and greatest 30-60 minutes’ driving distance from the closest foreign store. Combining continuous demand, fixed costs of cross-border shopping and linear transport costs `a la Hotelling we show how this hump-shape can arise through a combination of intensive and extensive margins of cross-border shopping. Our conclusions are further supported by novel survey evidence and cross-border traffic data.

Applying detailed consecutive daily micro data at the gasoline station level from Sweden we estimate a structural model to uncover the degree of competition in the gasoline retail market. We find that retailers do exercise market power, but despite the high upstream concentration, the market power is very limited on the downstream level. The degree of market power varies with both the distance to the nearest station and the local density of gasoline stations. A higher level of service tends to raise a seller’s market power; self-service stations have close to no market power. Contractual form and brand identity also seem to matter. We find a clear result: local station characteristics significantly affect the degree of market power. Our results indicate that local differences in station characteristics can more than offset the average market power found for the whole market.

Bedrifter har fått større mulighet til å samle informasjon om hver enkelt kunde. I dagligvaremarkedet samler kjedene informasjon om hvor og hva vi handler. NorgesGruppen og Coop har i mange år hatt rabattprogrammer hvor de samler inn detaljert informasjon. I januar 2017 kom Rema 1000 med sin Æ. Den kundespesifikke informasjonen som dagligvarekjedene samler inn, kan benyttes til å skreddersy så vel produkter som priser. I prinsippet gir dette muligheter for individuelle priser – perfekt prisdiskriminering. De fleste med økonomiutdannelse tenker tilbake til et introduksjonskurs i mikroøkonomi når man snakker om perfekt prisdiskriminering. Ved å sette pris lik maksimal betalingsvilje (reservasjonspris) for hvert enkelt individ, går hele det potensielle konsumentsoverskuddet til selgeren. Det som ofte blir glemt, eller kanskje ikke en gang nevnes, er at dette bygger på en kritisk forutsetning: at selgeren er monopolist. Når det er konkurranse, kan individuell prising føre til et kraftig fall i profitten siden det fører til konkurranse kunde for kunde. Det er et betimelig spørsmål om dagligvarekjedene vil ha insentiver til å benytte seg av individbasert prising når det kan slå så negativt ut på bunnlinjen. Svaret er ja – det vil kunne oppstå en fangens dilemma-situasjon som gjør at kjedene fristes til å benytte individbasert prising selv om de taper på det.

First, we analyze how regular days off from competition and a time-dependent price pattern affect firm performance. Second, we examine the effects on firms' profitability from consumers’ changing search- and timing behavior. We use microdata from gasoline retailing in Norway. Since 2004, firms have practiced an industry-wide day off from competition, starting on Mondays at noon, by increasing prices to a common level given by the recommended prices (decided and published in advance). Hence, firms know when and to what level to raise their price. In areas without local competition, retail prices are always equal to the recommended prices. Hinged on this, we regard recommended prices as the monopoly price level. In turn, a foreseeable low-price window is open before every restoration. During the data period, we observe an additional weekly restoration on Thursdays at noon. We show that an additional day off from competition increases firm performance. As expected, a conventional price search of where to buy reduces firms’ profitability. In contrast, consumers who are aware of the cycle and spend effort on when to buy have a positive impact on firms’ profitability. If consumers spend effort on when to buy rather than where to buy, price competition might be softened even in the low-price windows.

Bedrifter har fått større mulighet til å samle informasjon om hver enkelt kunde. I dagligvaremarkedet samler kjedene informasjon om hvor og hva vi handler. NorgesGruppen og Coop har i mange år hatt rabattprogrammer hvor de samler inn detaljert informasjon. I januar 2017 kom Rema 1000 med sin Æ. Den kundespesifikke informasjonen som dagligvarekjedene samler inn, kan benyttes til å skreddersy så vel produkter som priser. I prinsippet gir dette muligheter for individuelle priser – perfekt prisdiskriminering. De fleste med økonomiutdannelse tenker tilbake til et introduksjonskurs i mikroøkonomi når man snakker om perfekt prisdiskriminering. Ved å sette pris lik maksimal betalingsvilje (reservasjonspris) for hvert enkelt individ, går hele det potensielle konsumentsoverskuddet til selgeren. Det som ofte blir glemt, eller kanskje ikke en gang nevnes, er at dette bygger på en kritisk forutsetning: at selgeren er monopolist. Når det er konkurranse, kan individuell prising føre til et kraftig fall i profitten siden det fører til konkurranse kunde for kunde. Det er et betimelig spørsmål om dagligvarekjedene vil ha incentiver til å benytte seg av individbasert prising når det kan slå så negativt ut på bunnlinjen. Svaret er ja – det vil kunne oppstå en fangens dilemma-situasjon som gjør at kjedene fristes til å benytte individbasert prising selv om de taper på det.