{"paper":{"title":"Equilibrium Transition from Loss-Leader Competition: How Advertising Restrictions Facilitate Price Coordination in Chilean Pharmaceutical Retail","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["q-fin.EC"],"primary_cat":"econ.GN","authors_text":"Yu (Jasmine) Hao","submitted_at":"2025-12-28T13:12:31Z","abstract_excerpt":"Between December 2007 and April 2008 Chile's three retail pharmacy chains coordinated price increases on 222 medicines, weeks after advertising restrictions ended the comparative-price war that drove prices below cost. I study the transition with a demand-grounded structural model. The mechanism has two parts. Store traffic: comparative-price ads broadcast who is cheapest, so undercutting pays, yielding a below-cost war. Belief: a coordinated increase holds only if rivals expect it matched. The advertising ban moves both: by collapsing price sensitivity it makes undercutting unprofitable for t"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2512.22917","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2512.22917/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}