that retailers act as neutral pass-through intermediaries or charge exogenous constant margins as
if manufacturers directly set consumer prices. Chevalier, Kashyap and Rossi (2003) showed the
important role of distributors on prices and the strategic role of retailers has been recently em-
phasized in the economics and marketing empirical literatures. While each paper having its own
focus, a stream of research followed with an explicit consideration of the strategic roles of retailer,
for example : Goldberg and Verboven (2001), Manuszak (2001), Mortimer (2008), Ho (2006), Ho,
Ho and Mortimer (2008), Sudhir (2001), Villas-Boas and Zhao (2004), Asker (2005), Villas-Boas
(2007), Hellerstein (2008), Meza and Sudhir (2009), Bonnet and Dubois (2010). In particular, Sud-
hir (2001) considers the strategic interactions between manufacturers and a single retailer on a local
market and focuses on a linear pricing model leading to double marginalization. Meza and Sudhir
(2009) study how private labels affect the bargaining power of retailers. Ho (2006) studies the
welfare effects of vertical contracting between hospitals and health maintenance organizations in
the US. Ho (2009) looks at the role of managed care health insurers on the choice of hospitals using
the inequality framework of Pakes, Porter, Ho and Ishii (2006). Asker (2005) considers the role
of foreclosure in the strategic choices of vertical contracts on the beer market. Hellerstein (2008)
explains imperfect pass-through again in the beer market. Manuszak (2001) studies the impact of
upstream mergers on retail gasoline markets using a structural model allowing downstream prices
to be related to upstream price mark-ups and wholesale prices chosen by upstream gasoline refine-
ries. Hellerstein and Villas-Boas (2010) study the role of foreign outsourcing on the pass-through
rate of upstream part suppliers in the automobile industry. Villas-Boas (2009) studies the effects of
a ban on wholesale price discrimination on the German coffee market. Bonnet, Dubois and Villas-
Boas (2010) study the effects of vertical restraints, and in particular of non linear contracts with
resale price maintenance, on the cost pass through of the world market price of coffee on retail
prices in Germany.
These recent developments introducing retailers’ strategic behavior consider mostly cases where
competition between producers and/or retailers remains under linear pricing (like in Sudhir, 2001,