Fair Pricing, Upstream Market Power, and Vertical Restraint

Abstract

Fair pricing standards are used in various industries, encompassing fair trade, labor practices, and state-regulated pricing. We demonstrate that fair pricing can serve as a vertical restraint by a dominant manufacturer on its retailers to fully coordinating prices in a multi-product distribution channel with fair priced and conventional goods. We identify buyer market power by the manufacturer in the upstream market as a novel role for a manufacturer to impose a vertical restraint on retailers in the downstream market, and characterize the vertical restraint that maximizes collective rents in terms of demand-side and supply-side diversion ratios.