In this paper we examine the effect of competition on price dispersion and argue that the effect is contingent on the ability of firms to meet market demand. Our comparative static results show that competition among symmetrically capacity-unconstrained firms, or among firms with asymmetric capacities leads to an overall price increase along the distribution function. To investigate these findings empirically, we use a novel data set from the U.S. corn seed industry with firm and farm level sales information for conventional and genetically modified corn seeds between 2004 and 2009. We estimate the empirical model using the Fixed Effect Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression and find evidence consistent with the theory. The analysis also shows that capacity-unconstrained seed firms charge a price premium, confirming the positive relationship between product availability and pricing found in our theoretical model.

中文翻译：

---

竞争、价格分散和产能约束：以美国玉米种子产业为例

在本文中，我们研究了竞争对价格分散的影响，并认为这种影响取决于企业满足市场需求的能力。我们的比较静态结果表明，对称的产能不受限制的公司之间或产能不对称的公司之间的竞争导致沿着分配函数的总体价格上涨。为了实证研究这些发现，我们使用来自美国玉米种子行业的新数据集，其中包含 2004 年至 2009 年间常规和转基因玉米种子的公司和农场级别销售信息。我们使用固定效应工具变量分位数回归估计经验模型并找到与理论一致的证据。分析还表明，产能不受限制的种子公司收取价格溢价，