Market power and food loss at the producer-retailer interface of fruit and vegetable supply chains in Germany

Food loss and waste are associated with an unnecessary consumption of natural resources and avoidable greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations have thus set the reduction of food loss and waste on the political agenda by means of the Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3. The German Federal Government committed itself to this goal by implementing the National Strategy for Food Waste Reduction in 2019. However, this policy approach relies heavily on voluntary action by involved actors and neglects the possible role of power imbalances along the food supply chain. While current research on food loss and waste in industrialised countries predominantly focuses on the consumer level, this study puts emphasis on the under-researched early stages of the food supply chain from the field to retailers’ warehouses. Based on 22 expert interviews with producers, producer organisations and retailers, this article identifies major inter-stage drivers of food loss in the supply chains for fresh fruit and vegetables in Germany. Its main novelty is to demonstrate how market power imbalances and risk shifting between powerful and subordinate actors can reinforce the tendency of food loss on the part of producers further up the supply chain. Results indicate that prevalent institutional settings, such as contractual terms and conditions, trading practices, ordering processes, product specifications, and communication privilege retailers and encourage food loss. The mechanisms in which these imbalances manifest, go beyond the European Commission’s current legislation on Unfair Trading Practices. This study suggests a research agenda that might help to formulate adjusted policy instruments for re-structuring the German fruit and vegetable markets so that less food is wasted.

Assessing the Effects of Market Power on Electricity Reliability in China: Toward a Green and Reliable Market

The transition to a low-carbon power system is among the measures to forge green energy transition and carbon neutrality, where grid firms have a crucial role. In this context, this paper uses the provincial data from 2004 to 2017 to evaluate the impact of market power of grid companies on service quality in China. Panel dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) models are employed. The findings indicate that higher market power has indeed reduced reliability measured by average outage duration. Renewable energy integration also has negative effects and reduces electricity reliability. Finally, the effects are also heterogeneous across the different regions. The results may also provide useful lessons for other developing countries aiming to improve the electricity supply chain.

Determining the Level of Market Concentration in the Construction Sector—Case of Application of the HHI Index

Background—competitive conditions are often distorted in the construction sector, therefore this affects the market position of all participants. This paper seeks to find the tools for properly assessment of participants by Herfindahl-Hirschmann index (HHI) and to identify what parameters have the greatest impact in the competitiveness of the construction sector. Methods: in this article the DEMATEL method was used whereas tool for assessing the balance of market concentration as it may help to determine factor with the greatest influence on a firm’s HHI. Results in this work showed how different parameters affect each other and their impact on a value of a firms’s HHI. When the parameters are determined, they can be useful for assesment of mergers their influence on the HHI and alteration of the market’s power balance. Conclusions—The calculation of the HHI by using the DEMATEL method allowed to check the empirical implementation check of the multicriteria assessment method, on the market power of business entities, operating in the distorted market conditions of the construction sector.

The Capitalist Spirit and Endogenous Growth

The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of the capitalist spirit in conjunction with the distribution of income on economic growth. The capitalist spirit is represented by the fact that savings rates increase with increasing relative income. We extend an endogenous AK growth model in an overlapping generational framework by implementing imperfect competition and Cournot competition. Using this model, we investigate the influence of profits on the intra- and inter-generational distributions of income and economic growth. While increasing incomes lead to a more unequal intra-generational distribution and to a redistribution of income from the old to the young generation, the impact on economic growth is in general ambiguous, although under specific assumptions it becomes positive. Furthermore, the model shows that increasing market power of firms is associated with declining labor and capital shares, declining interest rates, and an increased wealth-to-income ratio.

A Subsidy That Is Inversely Related to the Product Price

This study considers a new subsidy design to support the purchase or production of target products. Under the proposed design, subsidy payments are inversely related to product prices. Compared to ‘flat’ subsidies, this design reduces producers’ market power and the subsidy benefits passed on to them, improving the cost-effectiveness of government spending (by up to 50% according to simulations based on an actual subsidy programme). Additionally, this subsidy’s cost-effectiveness and incidence can be adjusted flexibly by changing the policy parameters. Finally, the subsidy design can be modified to provide larger payments to higher-quality products, thereby offsetting disincentives for quality improvement.