Incumbent's price response to new entry: The case of Japanese supermarkets

Large-scale supermarkets have rapidly expanded in Japan over the past two decades, partly because of zoning deregulations for large-scale merchants. This study examines the effect of supermarket openings on the price of national-brand products sold at local incumbents, using scanner price data with a panel structure. Detailed geographic information on store location enables us to define treatment and control groups to control for unobserved heterogeneity and temporary demand shock. The analysis reveals that stores in the treatment group lowered their prices of curry paste, bottled tea, instant noodles, and toothpaste by 0.4-3.1% more than stores in a control group in response to a large-scale supermarket opening.