Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
In a paper in the March 2004 AER, Justine Hastings concludes that the acquisition of an independent gasoline retailer, Thrifty, by a vertically integrated firm, ARCO, is associated with sizable price increases at competing stations. To better understand the mechanism to which she attributes this effect -- which combines vertical integration and rebranding -- we attempted but ultimately failed to reproduce the results using alternative data.