Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339502 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IFS Working Papers No. 25/29
Publisher: 
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London
Abstract: 
We quantify changes in concentration, market power and welfare in the UK grocery retail sector from 2002 to 2021. We document that an expansion of discounter-format retailers coincided with declining retail and manufacturer concentration across most narrowly defined product categories. We develop an equilibrium model that incorporates consumer choice over retailers and products with Nash-in-Nash bargaining between manufacturers and retailers. Applying this model to the breakfast cereals market, we find that discounter expansion - through store openings, efficiency gains and changes to products - reduced concentration and average prices, increased consumer and total surplus, and especially benefited households near newly opened stores.
Subjects: 
discounters
concentration
market power
distributional effects
JEL: 
D12
L11
L13
L81
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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