Testing for Imperfect Competition at the Fulton Fish Market

In this article, I report the results of a study of the prices paid by individual buyers at the Fulton fish market in New York City. In principle, this is a highly competitive market in which there should be no predictable price differences across customers who are equally costly to service. The results indicate that different buyers pay different prices for fish of identical quality. For example, Asian buyers pay 7% less for whiting than do white buyers, a result which is inconsistent with the model of perfect competition.