We examine how different pass-through rates, from retail input- to final consumer prices, and different vertical contracts affect upstream market definition. Simple theoretical considerations suggest that vertical restraints induce higher pass-through rates and thus lead to a wider market definition when compared to linear wholesale pricing. Data from grocery retailing is used to quantify the empirical implications of our theoretical assertion. We find that resale price maintenance leads to larger upstream market definitions than linear pricing. We therefore advise competition authorities to carefully model vertical market structures, whenever they expect incomplete pass-through to be important.

我们研究了从零售投入到最终消费者价格的不同通过率以及不同的垂直合同如何影响上游市场的定义。简单的理论考虑表明，与线性批发定价相比，垂直约束会导致较高的通过率，从而导致更广阔的市场定义。从杂货店零售获得的数据用于量化我们理论主张的经验含义。我们发现，转售价格维持比线性定价带来更大的上游市场定义。因此，我们建议竞争管理机构每当他们认为不完全的传递非常重要时，就应仔细模拟垂直市场结构。