TY  - JOUR
AU  - Chevalier,Judith
AU  - Morton,Fiona Scott
TI  - State Casket Sales and Restrictions: A Pointless Undertaking?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12012
PY  - 2006
Y2  - February 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12012
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12012.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Judith A. Chevalier
Yale School of Management
135 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT  06520
Tel: 203/432-3122
Fax: NA
E-Mail: judith.chevalier@yale.edu

Fiona Scott Morton
Yale School of Management
Box 208200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
Tel: 203/432-5569
Fax: 203/432-6974
E-Mail: fiona.scottmorton@yale.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -