Searching for the Concentration-Price Effect in the German Movie Theater Industry

Böhme, Enrico and Müller, Christopher (2009): Searching for the Concentration-Price Effect in the German Movie Theater Industry.

Abstract

This paper investigates whether a price-concentration relationship can be found on local cinema markets in Germany. First, we test a model of monopolistic pricing using a new set of German micro data and find no significant difference in admission prices on monopoly and oligopoly markets. In a next step, we test whether this can be explained by the existence of local monopolies, but find no hint of that. Implicit or explicit collusion among cinema operators might explain our observations.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: price-concentration study; cinema pricing
• Subjects: L - Industrial Organization > L8 - Industry Studies: Services > L82 - Entertainment ; Media; L - Industrial Organization > L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance > L11 - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure ; Size Distribution of Firms; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R3 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location > R32 - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

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