Consolidation in the Wireless Phone Industry
25 Pages Posted: 21 Nov 2005
Date Written: October 2005
Abstract
The initial wireless phone industry in the United States had many competitors, but due to mergers and acquisitions the industry has become highly consolidated. This paper documents the history of the consolidation. More importantly, I use the geographic path of consolidation to distinguish whether consolidation has been motived by retail market power or efficiency explanations. One efficiency explanation is that consumers prefer national coverage areas. I use data on roaming agreements in the early cellular industry to analyze whether contracts can substitute for roaming agreements. Finally, in joint work with Patrick Bajari and Stephen Ryan we estimate the consumer valuation for national coverage areas using plan demand data.
Keywords: wireless, telecoomunications
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Competitive Non-Linear Pricing in Duopoly Equilibrium: The Early Us Cellular Telephone Industry
-
Evaluating Wireless Carrier Consolidation Using Semiparametric Demand Estimation
By Patrick Bajari, Jeremy T. Fox, ...
-
Are All Those Calling Plans Really Necessary? The Limited Gains from Complex Tariffs
-
The Effect of Entry and Market Structure on Cellular Pricing Tactics
By Katja Seim and V. Brian Viard
-
The Effect of Entry and Market Structure on Cellular Pricing Tactics
By Katja Seim and V. Brian Viard
-
Identifying Price Discrimination When Product Menus are Endogenous