IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rje/randje/v30y1999iautumnp397-420.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Free Entry and Social Inefficiency in Radio Broadcasting

Author

Listed:
  • Steven T. Berry
  • Joel Waldfogel

Abstract

In theory, free entry can lead to social inefficiency. We study the radio industry in a first attempt to quantify this inefficiency. Using cross-sectional data on advertising prices, the number of stations, and radio listening, we estimate the parameters of listeners' decisions and of firms' profits. Relative to the social optimum, our estimates imply that the welfare loss (to firms and advertisers) of free entry is 45% of revenue. However, the free entry equilibrium would be optimal if the marginal value of programming to listeners were about three times the value of marginal listeners to advertisers.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven T. Berry & Joel Waldfogel, 1999. "Free Entry and Social Inefficiency in Radio Broadcasting," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(3), pages 397-420, Autumn.
    • Handle: RePEc:rje:randje:v:30:y:1999:i:autumn:p:397-420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261%28199923%2930%3A3%3C397%3AFEASII%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Spence, 1976. "Product Selection, Fixed Costs, and Monopolistic Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(2), pages 217-235.
    2. David Dranove & Mark Shanley & Carol Simon, 1992. "Is Hospital Competition Wasteful?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(2), pages 247-262, Summer.
    3. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    4. Berry, Steven T, 1992. "Estimation of a Model of Entry in the Airline Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 889-917, July.
    5. Anderson, Simon P & de Palma, Andre & Nesterov, Yurii, 1995. "Oligopolistic Competition and the Optimal Provision of Products," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(6), pages 1281-1301, November.
    6. Daniel McFadden, 1977. "Modelling the Choice of Residential Location," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 477, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    7. N. Gregory Mankiw & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Free Entry and Social Inefficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 48-58, Spring.
    8. Spence, Michael, 1976. "Product Differentiation and Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 407-414, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Gaynor, "undated". "What Do We Know About Competition and Quality in Health Care Markets?," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E62, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    2. Gotz, Georg, 2002. "Sunk costs, windows of profit opportunities, and the dynamics of entry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(10), pages 1409-1436, December.
    3. Ferrari, Stijn & Verboven, Frank, 2010. "Empirical analysis of markets with free and restricted entry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 403-406, July.
    4. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2003. "Can Free Entry Be Inefficient? Fixed Commissions and Social Waste in the Real Estate Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1076-1122, October.
    5. Yuk Ying Chang & Martin Young, 2015. "Dissipative Competition: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 15(2), pages 169-198, June.
    6. Liu, An-Hsiang & Siebert, Ralph B., 2022. "The competitive effects of declining entry costs over time: Evidence from the static random access memory market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Arijit Mukherjee & Udo Broll & Soma Mukherjee, 2009. "The welfare effects of entry: the role of the input market," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 98(3), pages 189-201, December.
    8. Arijit Mukherjee & Soma Mukherjee, 2008. "Excess‐Entry Theorem: The Implications Of Licensing," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 76(6), pages 675-689, December.
    9. Kory Kroft & René Leal-Vizcaíno & Matthew J. Notowidigdo & Ting Wang, 2022. "Parallel inverse aggregate demand curves in discrete choice models," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(3), pages 923-946, October.
    10. Marjit, Sugata & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2013. "Foreign competition and social efficiency of entry," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 108-112.
    11. Steven Berry & Alon Eizenberg & Joel Waldfogel, 2016. "Fixed Costs and the Product Market Treatment of Preference Minorities," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 466-493, September.
    12. Tian Wu & Bohan Zeng & Yali He & Xin Tian & Xunmin Ou, 2017. "Sustainable Governance for the Opened Electric Vehicle Charging and Upgraded Facilities Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-22, November.
    13. Frank R. Lichtenberg & Joel Waldfogel, 2003. "Does Misery Love Company? Evidence from pharmaceutical markets before and after the Orphan Drug Act," NBER Working Papers 9750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Miao Chun-Hui, 2014. "Do Card Users Benefit From the Use of Proportional Fees?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 323-341, January.
    15. Cabral, Luis M. B., 2004. "Simultaneous entry and welfare," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 943-957, October.
    16. Pierre M. Picard & Eric Toulemonde, 2009. "On monopolistic competition and optimal product diversity: workers' rents also matter," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 1347-1360, November.
    17. Rey, Patrick & Salant, David, 2012. "Abuse of dominance and licensing of intellectual property," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 518-527.
    18. Stijn Kelchtermans & Frank Verboven, 2007. "Reducing product diversity in higher education," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces0726, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    19. Tsai, Yingyi & Mukherjee, Arijit & Chen, Jong-Rong, 2016. "Host market competition, foreign FDI and domestic welfare," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 13-22.
    20. Christopher S. Yoo, 2017. "Avoiding the Pitfalls of Net Uniformity: Zero Rating and Nondiscrimination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(4), pages 509-536, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rje:randje:v:30:y:1999:i:autumn:p:397-420. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rje.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.