Product market competition and lobbying coordination in the US mobile telecommunications industry

Arbeitspapier

This paper empirically investigates market behavior and firms’ lobbying in a unified structural setup. In a sequential game, where firms lobby for regulation before they compete in the product market, we derive a testable measure of lobbying coordination. Applying the setting to the early U.S. cellular services industry, we find that lobbying expenditures, as measured by campaign contributions, and market conduct were consistent with a one-shot Nash equilibrium and that price caps were binding on average. Furthermore, campaign contributions from cellular firms effectively lowered the burden of the price caps and reduced production costs.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: WZB Discussion Paper ; No. SP II 2003-16

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Economics of Regulation ; Telecommunications ; Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
• Subject: Collusion ; Lobbying ; Price Cap ; Regulation ; Rent-Seeking ; Interest ; Groups ; Telecommunication

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Jung, Astrid ; Duso, Tomaso
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2003

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/50969
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET