Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/69524 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Kiel Working Paper No. 1829
Publisher: 
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel
Abstract: 
This paper explores the role of pooled-producer, e.g. private label, trade intermediation in shaping the range and diversity of exports. Direct sales maintain a firm's unique product characteristics ('brand equity'), whereas trade through an intermediary can take two forms - either a wholesaling arrangement that (also) maintains the exporter's unique brand but imposes a higher marginal cost (via double marginalization), or a 'private label' contract under which the firm's product is pooled with other firms' output and re-sold under a new private label brand created by the intermediary. This paper focuses on the latter, and shows that the availability of the private label option results in greater total export volumes and lower average prices for consumers, but fewer independent varieties available in equilibrium. Welfare implications are mixed: consumers trade variety for volume, firms face greater competition from the new pooled-products, and intermediaries capture much of the gains from trade.
Subjects: 
Private Labels
Export Mode
Intermediaries
Heterogeneous Firms
International Retailers
JEL: 
F13
F16
D72
E60
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
400.13 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.