IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/regeco/v57y2020i1d10.1007_s11149-020-09400-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Compliance and competition with heterogeneous service providers: the federal Lifeline program

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas S. Conkling

    (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

Abstract

This paper studies how compliance behavior varies across competing service providers in the Lifeline phone subsidy program and assesses whether enlarging the set of providers improves program outcomes. In markets where firms compete to provide government benefits or services directly to individuals, the most productive firms—in terms of service quality or operating costs—survive and serve the market. However, imperfect enforcement of program rules may weaken competitive pressures through non-compliance, allowing less productive firms to maintain market share. I exploit institutional features of the Lifeline program, state-level variation in regulatory environments and a one-time reform, to empirically document the importance of provider heterogeneity following a 2008 expansion of Lifeline. The presence of low-compliance providers in particular markets drives the largest state-level differences in wasteful or inefficient program spending. Qualitatively, these providers appear to select into state markets with looser enforcement of program rules. In counterfactual simulations, excluding low-compliance providers prevents 500,000 ineligible enrollments, while only reducing eligible enrollments by 100,000. Further restrictions come at a higher cost, reflecting the trade-off of compliance and competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas S. Conkling, 2020. "Compliance and competition with heterogeneous service providers: the federal Lifeline program," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 74-104, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:regeco:v:57:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11149-020-09400-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11149-020-09400-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11149-020-09400-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11149-020-09400-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Marc Rysman, 2005. "Unobserved Product Differentiation in Discrete-Choice Models: Estimating Price Elasticities and Welfare Effects," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 771-788, Winter.
    2. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    3. Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson, 2004. "Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry: A Case Study of S&P 500 Index Funds," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(2), pages 403-456.
    4. Mark Egan & Gregor Matvos & Amit Seru, 2019. "The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 233-295.
    5. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 1995. "Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 769-798.
    6. Asher Wolinsky, 1984. "Product Differentiation with Imperfect Information," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(1), pages 53-61.
    7. Jonathan Levin & Steven Tadelis, 2010. "Contracting For Government Services: Theory And Evidence From U.S. Cities," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 507-541, September.
    8. Poterba, James M, 1994. "State Responses to Fiscal Crises: The Effects of Budgetary Institutions and Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 799-821, August.
    9. Ackerberg, Daniel A. & DeRemer, David R. & Riordan, Michael H. & Rosston, Gregory L. & Wimmer, Bradley S., 2014. "Estimating the impact of low-income universal service programs," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 84-98.
    10. Chad Syverson, 2004. "Market Structure and Productivity: A Concrete Example," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1181-1222, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Oliver Hart & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1127-1161.
    13. Victor Stango & Jonathan Zinman, 2011. "Fuzzy Math, Disclosure Regulation, and Market Outcomes: Evidence from Truth-in-Lending Reform," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(2), pages 506-534.
    14. 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.
    15. T. Randolph Beard & Jeffrey T. Macher & John W. Mayo, 2015. "'Can you Hear Me Now?' Exit, Voice and Loyalty Under Increasing Competition," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    16. Rodini, Mark & Ward, Michael R. & Woroch, Glenn A., 0. "Going mobile: substitutability between fixed and mobile access," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(5-6), pages 457-476, June.
    17. Hauge, Janice A. & Jamison, Mark A. & Todd Jewell, R., 2008. "Discounting telephone service: An examination of participation in the Lifeline Assistance Program using panel data," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 135-149, June.
    18. Steven T. Berry, 1994. "Estimating Discrete-Choice Models of Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 242-262, Summer.
    19. Emin M. Dinlersoz & Mehmet Yorukoglu, 2012. "Information and Industry Dynamics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 884-913, April.
    20. Macher, Jeffrey T & Mayo, John W & Ukhaneva, Olga & Woroch, Glenn A, 2017. "From universal service to universal connectivity," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7jp5v5nz, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    21. Chad Syverson, 2004. "Product Substitutability and Productivity Dispersion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 534-550, May.
    22. Burton Mark & Macher Jeffrey & Mayo John W, 2007. "Understanding Participation in Social Programs: Why Don't Households Pick up the Lifeline?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, November.
    23. Reed, W. Robert, 2006. "Democrats, republicans, and taxes: Evidence that political parties matter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 725-750, May.
    24. Darby, Michael R & Karni, Edi, 1973. "Free Competition and the Optimal Amount of Fraud," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 67-88, April.
    25. Garvie, Devon & Keeler, Andrew, 1994. "Incomplete enforcement with endogenous regulatory choice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 141-162, September.
    26. Ward, Michael R. & Woroch, Glenn A., 2010. "The effect of prices on fixed and mobile telephone penetration: Using price subsidies as natural experiments," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 18-32, March.
    27. Polsky, Daniel & David, Guy & Yang, Jianing & Kinosian, Bruce & Werner, Rachel M., 2014. "The effect of entry regulation in the health care sector: The case of home health," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 1-14.
    28. Eriksson, Ross C & Kaserman, David L & Mayo, John W, 1998. "Targeted and Untargeted Subsidy Schemes: Evidence from Postdivestiture Efforts to Promote Universal Telephone Service," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 477-502, October.
    29. Marx, Benjamin M., 2015. "Has regulation of charitable foundations thrown the baby out with the bath water?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 63-76.
    30. Cardell, N. Scott, 1997. "Variance Components Structures for the Extreme-Value and Logistic Distributions with Application to Models of Heterogeneity," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 185-213, April.
    31. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    32. Valletti, Tommaso M & Hoernig, Steffen & Barros, Pedro P, 2002. "Universal Service and Entry: The Role of Uniform Pricing and Coverage Constraints," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 169-190, March.
    33. 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.
    34. Rosston, Gregory L. & Wimmer, Bradley S., 2000. "The 'state' of universal service," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 261-283, September.
    35. Jeffrey T. Macher & John W. Mayo & Olga Ukhaneva & Glenn A. Woroch, 2017. "From universal service to universal connectivity," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 77-104, August.
    36. Jeffrey T. Macher & John W. Mayo & Jack A. Nickerson, 2011. "Regulator Heterogeneity and Endogenous Efforts to Close the Information Asymmetry Gap," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 25-54.
    37. John M. Griffin & Gonzalo Maturana, 2016. "Editor's Choice Who Facilitated Misreporting in Securitized Loans?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(2), pages 384-419.
    38. Hart, Oliver D. & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, R. W., 1997. "The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons," Scholarly Articles 30727607, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    39. Thomas S. Conkling, 2018. "Crowd‐Out or Affordability? The Lifeline Expansion's Effect on Wireless Service Spending," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 357-383, March.
    40. Rosston, G.R. & Wimmer, B.S., 2000. "The "State" of Universal Service," Papers 99-018, United Nations World Employment Programme-.
    41. Emin M. Dinlersoz & Mehmet Yorukoglu, 2012. "Information and Industry Dynamics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 884-913, April.
    42. Michael Luca & Georgios Zervas, 2016. "Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3412-3427, December.
    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. Lamar Pierce & Michael W. Toffel, 2013. "The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(5), pages 1558-1584, October.
    2. Bertacchini, Enrico & Dalle Nogare, Chiara, 2014. "Public provision vs. outsourcing of cultural services: Evidence from Italian cities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 168-182.
    3. Steven Berry & Alon Eizenberg & Joel Waldfogel, 2016. "Optimal product variety in radio markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(3), pages 463-497, August.
    4. Per G. Fredriksson & Khawaja A. Mamun, 2014. "Tobacco Politics and Electoral Accountability in the United States," Public Finance Review, , vol. 42(1), pages 4-34, January.
    5. Yarmukhamedov, Sherzod & Smith, Andrew S.J. & Thiebaud, Jean-Christophe, 2020. "Competitive tendering, ownership and cost efficiency in road maintenance services in Sweden: A panel data analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 194-204.
    6. Hauge, Janice A. & Jamison, Mark A. & Todd Jewell, R., 2008. "Discounting telephone service: An examination of participation in the Lifeline Assistance Program using panel data," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 135-149, June.
    7. Catherine Schaumans & Frank Verboven, 2015. "Entry and Competition in Differentiated Products Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(1), pages 195-209, March.
    8. Thomas S. Conkling, 2018. "Crowd‐Out or Affordability? The Lifeline Expansion's Effect on Wireless Service Spending," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 357-383, March.
    9. W. Robert Reed, 2009. "The Determinants Of U.S. State Economic Growth: A Less Extreme Bounds Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 685-700, October.
    10. Jiao Luo & Aseem Kaul, 2019. "Private action in public interest: The comparative governance of social issues," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 476-502, April.
    11. Leigh, Andrew, 2008. "Estimating the impact of gubernatorial partisanship on policy settings and economic outcomes: A regression discontinuity approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 256-268, March.
    12. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Boucher, Vincent, 2015. "Polluting politics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 176-181.
    13. Garbacz, Christopher & Thompson, Herbert Jr., 2005. "Universal telecommunication service: A world perspective," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 495-512, October.
    14. Jean Beuve & Marian W Moszoro & Pablo T Spiller, 2023. "Doing It by the Book: Political Contestability and Public Contract Renegotiations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 281-308.
    15. Athias, Laure & Wicht, Pascal, 2014. "Cultural Biases in Public Service Delivery: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach," MPRA Paper 60639, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. 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.
    17. Mariuzzo, Franco & Walsh, Patrick Paul & Whelan, Ciara, 2010. "Coverage of retail stores and discrete choice models of demand: Estimating price elasticities and welfare effects," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 555-578, September.
    18. Lamar Pierce & Michael W. Toffel, 2010. "The Role of Organizational Scope and Governance in Strengthening Private Monitoring," Harvard Business School Working Papers 11-004, Harvard Business School, revised Feb 2012.
    19. Ford, George S., 2021. "Subsidies and substitution: An empirical study of the lifeline program," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1).
    20. Dai, Mian & Yuan, Yuan, 2013. "Product differentiation and efficiencies in the retail banking industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 4907-4919.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Compliance; Competition; Enforcement; Firm heterogeneity; Lifeline; Universal service;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out

    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:kap:regeco:v:57:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11149-020-09400-5. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.