Price Leadership In UK Food Retailing: Time Series Representation And Evidence

This paper analyses the price of a common basket of products sold in each of the UK's four largest retail chains to assess propositions regarding price leadership. Data used in this investigation represent weighted average prices of a large group of branded and non-branded products purchased nationally at weekly intervals over a three and half year period and cover purchases in 37 product categories. The data are analysed using vector autoregressive methods, a convenient framework for a statistical investigation of this sort, owing to the time series properties that the price data exhibit. The paper introduces the concepts of strategic and tactical price leadership.