Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/201276 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
ETLA Working Papers No. 61
Publisher: 
The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA), Helsinki
Abstract: 
This paper empirically analyzes how a data broker affects competition in oligopolistic product markets. It examines a unique case concerning the two dominant Finnish food retail companies’ voluntary withdrawal from information exchange via a data broker. Moreover, the companies jointly approached the Finnish antitrust authority, originating an investigation whether their prior horizontal information exchange was illegal. This resulted in the permanent termination of a data broker’s business in the Finnish food retail sector. The empirical analysis employs quarterly data from the food retail sector of the old EU15 countries for 2005–2017. The difference-in-differences model is used to explore the competitive impacts of a termination of vertical and horizontal information exchange via a data broker in the Finnish food retail sector. Data suggest that competition was less fierce and product prices higher after the termination of information exchange via a data broker. Longer-term evidence on the price increase in the absence of a data broker is inconclusive. Furthermore, discontinuation of data exchange from the downstream to the upstream firms facilitated downstream bargaining power and generated a long-term increase in the gap between retail and producer prices.
Subjects: 
Data brokers
Market for data
Competition
Competition policy
JEL: 
L11
L13
L41
L81
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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