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Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate market competition for three product types of salmon (smoke, fresh and whole salmon) to understand whether supermarkets are exercising market power over salmon consumers in the UK retail market.Design/methodology/approach– Competition and the corresponding pricing conduct among supermarkets are tested by applying dynamic structural simultaneous system equations and using similar data set used by Jaffryet al.(2003).Findings– The results indicate that the market is competitive for fresh fillets and whole salmon but retailers appeared to exert some level of market power for smoke salmon. The hypothesis that market power is the same for all three products in the study was rejected; further indicating that the market for fresh products are competitive while retailers may be exercising market power over consumers for smoke salmon.Research limitations/implications– Current data limitations did not allow the investigation to cover the past few years in the modelling process. However, the results are still relevant as there have been no major structural changes in aquaculture products retailing landscape in the recent past.Practical implications– Concerns over the supermarkets' exercise of market power over consumers have prompted the competition authorities to continue investigating the situation in the UK supermarket sector since 1996. The most recent investigation by competition authorities was in 2006. In all cases, no evidence of market power was found despite increased market concentration. Results from this study generally uphold the claim of the competition authorities in the UK.Originality/value– This is the first study to use a model within a structural econometric framework of firms to test for competitiveness of salmon products in the UK market place.

This study evaluates the impact of privatisation on efficiency and productivity of the Pakistani cement industry. To address some of the serious concerns about the problem of dimension and outlier, we use a newly developed unconditional hyperbolic α-quantile estimator of Wheelock and Wilson to estimate efficiency (Wheelock D. C., and Wilson P. W., 2008, Non-parametric, unconditional quantile estimation for efficiency analysis with an application to Federal Reserve check processing operations, Journal of Econometrics, 209-225). Subsequently, we use these efficiency estimates to calculate the Malmquist productivity growth and its components. The results show that deregulation and privatisation had the desired positive effect on productivity growth due to technological progress. We conclude that this improvement in the post reform period could be linked to political stability, improved economic conditions and a competitive industry.

The global financial turmoil of 2008 has resulted in the curtailment of military expenditure in most western countries. At a sub-regional-level reductions in the level of activity at a major military facility can have significant economic impact. In the light of this, the paper has two objectives: to analyse the impact of the decision to terminate naval shipbuilding at the United Kingdom's Portsmouth Naval Base; and, for illustrative purposes, to examine the possible economic consequences of further contraction at the facility. In pursuit of these aims, it is necessary to establish the output, income and employment generated by the base using a bespoke input–output model. The methodology employed can, with appropriate adjustments, be utilised in other military or civilian contexts.