State Casket Sales and Restrictions: A Pointless Undertaking? / Judith Chevalier, Fiona Scott Morton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chevalier, Judith.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Scott Morton, Fiona.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w12012.

NBER working paper series no. w12012

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

State Casket Sales and Restrictions

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.

Summary:

We utilize a new micro dataset of prices of funeral goods and services at individual funeral homes, plus data from the Census to examine the effects of state regulations that restrict entry into funeral goods market. In particular, some states have regulations that allow only licensed funeral homes to sell caskets, while others allow unlicensed retailers, such as Costco, to compete with funeral homes in the sale of caskets. However, as caskets and funeral services are complements, generally purchased in one-to-one proportions, it is not a priori clear that casket sale restrictions can expand the rent extraction capabilities of licensed funeral homes. Our results suggest that when courts lift funeral goods sales restrictions the prices of funeral goods fall but the prices of funeral services rise by nearly as much. Overall, our results support the "one monopoly rent" hypothesis; we do not find that overall funeral home revenues decline when funeral goods sales are lifted.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2006.