Political Determinants of Competition in the Mobile Telecommunication Industry / Mara Faccio, Luigi Zingales.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Faccio, Mara.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Zingales, Luigi.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w23041.

NBER working paper series no. w23041

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2017.

Summary:

We study how political factors shape competition in the mobile telecommunication sector. We show that the way a government designs the rules of the game has an impact on concentration, competition, and prices. Pro-competition regulation reduces prices, but does not hurt quality of services or investments. More democratic governments tend to design more competitive rules, while more politically connected operators are able to distort the rules in their favor, restricting competition. Government intervention has large redistributive effects: U.S. consumers would gain $65bn a year if U.S. mobile service prices were in line with German ones and $44bn if they were in line with Danish ones.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2017.