Essays in retail management

Restricted until 03 Aug. 2012.I study issues related to retail management in packaged goods and durable goods markets. In the packaged goods context, I investigate how brand- and category-level assortments impact consumers' purchase incidence and SKU choice decisions. I also investigate retail competition in the U.S. automobile industry by developing structural models and estimation approaches to (a) infer the nature of competition between manufacturers in the presence of exclusive retailers and (b) to identify how intra- and inter-channel competition varies by brands and across different geographical markets