Competition economics

Understand behaviour of firms and market outcomes

Schiff Consulting has extensive experience of applying data and econometric analysis, economic modelling, and data visualisation to understand and illustrate how markets work and how firms behave. This includes assisting competition authorities to evaluate proposed mergers and acquisitions, and to study competitive conditions in markets through quantitative deep-dives in to market outcomes and operational data provided by firms.

Examples of work

Merger assessment: Schiff Consulting has assisted the NZ Commerce Commission with its assessment of merger applications in various contexts and markets including electricity, consumer products, and manufacturing.

Competition research: The NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment contracted Schiff Consulting to help with analysis of data and development of tools to understand the state of competition in New Zealand industries.

Competition assessment: Schiff Consulting was engaged by the NZ Commerce Commission to analyse a large dataset of retail pricing activity by supermarkets to support its study of competition in the grocery sector. This involved identifying pricing patterns and testing whether there was support for various hypotheses about pricing behaviour.