Do wine merchants drive the industry: a mesoeconomic approach

Do wine merchants drive the industry: a mesoeconomic approach
Brand Sofya,
[email protected], GREThA UMR 5113, Université
Montesquieu Bordeaux IV ; ENITA de Bordeaux
Bélis-Bergouignan Marie-Claude, [email protected],
GREThA UMR 5113, Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV
Corade Nathalie, [email protected], ENITA de Bordeaux
During a fair period of time the perspectives of the wine industry are largely debated
in France. The discussions are held in three forums: media, political and professional
(Costa, de Maillard, Smith, 2007) and they often refer to the notions of crisis and
globalization. Some claim that the French system is incapable to meet the
international competition on the wine market and needs radical changes at the image
of the new world’s wine production systems. Others say that the French wine industry
model has proved its viability during a long period of its existence and just needs to
be readjusted to the current globalized economy. In fact, it was initially created and
structured to regulate the tensions and the conflicts between wine merchants and
producers. Actually the industry undergoes a change-over because the relationships
between these two groups of agents have modified as well as the allocation of
functions in the production and commercialization process.
In this context a number of reforms of the wine sector in France and Europe have
been initiated recently. These reforms question the role of wine merchants in the
process of restructuring of the industry and of redefining the rules of its functioning.
Though wine merchants are meant to be the first-key actors of the industry
transformations they still remain insufficiently explored by economists as opposed to
producers. The major part of the existent research concerns vertical relationships
between merchants and producers, mergers and acquisitions and financial analysis
of the firms. We consider that another approach is needed in order to understand
how the actors of the wine industry, merchants in particular, manage other major
uncertainties of the wine production system and to analyze their strategies as well as
the logics of the wine industry evolution in whole. We would like also to draw
attention to one of the important characteristics of the wine industry – the strong
implication of its actors in the political process of designing the rules of the industry’s
life. Therefore the way that the agents act in order to fix up these rules and to
represent their interests must be endogenized by such an approach.
The present paper aims two objectives. Firstly, after a review of theoretical and
empirical economic literature studying wine merchants’ activity, we will present a
theoretical frame to which we adhere – Politics of Industry approach, originally
proposed by B. Jullien and A. Smith. This frame treats the industry on the
mesoeconomic level and consolidates the economics of conventions, regulation
school and political character of interactions between agents. Secondly, we will adapt
this frame to our specific subject – wine merchants and pre-validate it basing on the
Bordeaux case study. Often considered as a specific model of wine industry
organization, and as a reference in the wine world, Bordeaux offers a rich panel of
examples illustrating the current dynamics in the sector and provides a consistent
base to our research.
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