IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhhfms/2012_010.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Empirical evidence on the relationship between mobile termination rates and firms’ profit

Author

Listed:
  • Andersson, Kjetil

    (Dept. of Economics and Business Administration, University of Agder)

  • Foros, Øystein

    (Dept. of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

  • Hansen, Bjørn

    (Telenor Research and Innovation (R&I))

Abstract

The comprehensive theoretical literature on mobile termination rates (MTRs) is inconclusive on how the level of MTRs affects overall consumer charges and firms’ profit. In a theoretical model, well suited for econometric implementation, we show that where consumers buy a bundle with included usage, as we now observe in the market, the level of MTRs has no impact on retail prices and firms’ profit. We use a panel data set from saturated European markets and find that an identical change in MTRs does not have a significant impact on firms’ profit.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersson, Kjetil & Foros, Øystein & Hansen, Bjørn, 2012. "Empirical evidence on the relationship between mobile termination rates and firms’ profit," Discussion Papers 2012/10, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2012_010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/164204
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Armstrong & Julian Wright, 2009. "Mobile Call Termination," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(538), pages 270-307, June.
    2. Michael D. Grubb, 2009. "Selling to Overconfident Consumers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1770-1807, December.
    3. Martin Peitz, 2005. "Asymmetric Regulation of Access and Price Discrimination in Telecommunications," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 327-343, November.
    4. Joan Calzada & Tommaso M. Valletti, 2008. "Network Competition and Entry Deterrence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1223-1244, August.
    5. Christos Genakos & Tommaso Valletti, 2011. "Testing The “Waterbed” Effect In Mobile Telephony," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(6), pages 1114-1142, December.
    6. Hoernig, Steffen, 2014. "Competition between multiple asymmetric networks: Theory and applications," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 57-69.
    7. Peitz, Martin, 2005. "Asymmetric access price regulation in telecommunications markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 341-358, February.
    8. Glenn Ellison, 2005. "A Model of Add-On Pricing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 585-637.
    9. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    10. Genakos, Christos & Valletti, Tommaso, 2011. "Seesaw in the air: Interconnection regulation and the structure of mobile tariffs," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 159-170, June.
    11. Doh-Shin Jeon & Sjaak Hurkens, 2007. "A retail benchmarking approach to efficient two-way access pricing," Economics Working Papers 1055, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    12. Christopher F Baum & Mark E Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2002. "IVREG2: Stata module for extended instrumental variables/2SLS and GMM estimation," Statistical Software Components S425401, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 14 Aug 2024.
    13. Dessein, Wouter, 2003. "Network Competition in Nonlinear Pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(4), pages 593-611, Winter.
    14. Doh‐Shin Jeon & Sjaak Hurkens, 2008. "A retail benchmarking approach to efficient two‐way access pricing: no termination‐based price discrimination†," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 822-849, September.
    15. JP Eggers & Michal Grajek & Tobias Kretschmer, 2011. "Decomposing First Mover Advantages in the Mobile Telecommunications Industry," DRUID Working Papers 11-09, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    16. Armstrong, Mark, 1998. "Network Interconnection in Telecommunications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 545-564, May.
    17. Michael Carter & Julian Wright, 2003. "Asymmetric Network Interconnection," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 22(1), pages 27-46, February.
    18. Hahn, Jong-Hee, 2004. "Network competition and interconnection with heterogeneous subscribers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 611-631, May.
    19. Yongmin Chen & Michael H. Riordan, 2007. "Price and Variety in the Spokes Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 897-921, July.
    20. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mothobi, Onkokame, 2022. "The impact of telecommunication regulatory policy on mobile retail price in Sub-Saharan African countries," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    2. Hurkens, Sjaak & López, Ángel L., 2021. "Mobile termination rates and retail regimes in Europe and the US: A unified theory of CPP and RPP," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    3. Mansi Kedia, 2019. "Testing the waterbed effect for India’s telecom industry," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 121-148, June.

    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. Hoernig, Steffen, 2014. "Competition between multiple asymmetric networks: Theory and applications," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 57-69.
    2. Lee, Dongyeol, 2015. "Regulating termination charges in asymmetric oligopolies," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 16-28.
    3. Hurkens, Sjaak & Jeon, Doh-Shin, 2009. "Mobile termination and mobile penetration," IESE Research Papers D/816, IESE Business School.
    4. Jullien, Bruno & Rey, Patrick & Sand-Zantman, Wilfried, 2013. "Termination fees revisited," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 738-750.
    5. Thomas P. Tangerås, 2014. "Network competition with income effects," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(3), pages 645-673, September.
    6. Luis López, Ángel, 2011. "Mobile termination rates and the receiver-pays regime," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 171-181, June.
    7. Sjaak Hurkens & Ángel L. López, 2014. "Mobile Termination, Network Externalities and Consumer Expectations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(579), pages 1005-1039, September.
    8. Hawthorne, Ryan, 2018. "The effects of lower mobile termination rates in South Africa," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 374-385.
    9. Mark Armstrong & Julian Wright, 2009. "Mobile Call Termination," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(538), pages 270-307, June.
    10. Doh‐Shin Jeon & Sjaak Hurkens, 2008. "A retail benchmarking approach to efficient two‐way access pricing: no termination‐based price discrimination†," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 822-849, September.
    11. Hurkens, Sjaak & Jeon, Doh-Shin, 2012. "Promoting network competition by regulating termination charges," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 541-552.
    12. Stennek, Johan & Tangerås, Thomas, 2006. "Competition vs. Regulation in Mobile Telecommunications," Working Paper Series 685, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    13. Harbord, David & Hoernig, Steffen, 2010. "Welfare Analysis of Regulating Mobile Termination Rates in the UK (with an Application to the Orange/T-Mobile Merger)," MPRA Paper 21515, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Lopez, Angel & Rey, Patrick, 2009. "Foreclosing Competition through Access Charges and Price Discrimination," TSE Working Papers 09-056, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised 02 Apr 2015.
    15. David Harbord & Steffen Hoernig, 2015. "Welfare Analysis of Regulating Mobile Termination Rates in the U.K," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 673-703, December.
    16. Rohit Prasad & Rupamanjari Ray, 2015. "The relation of traffic balance and network size: a case from the indian mobile industry," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 149-167, December.
    17. Agostini, Claudio A. & Willington, Manuel & Lazcano, Raúl & Saavedra, Eduardo, 2017. "Predation and network based price discrimination in Chile," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 781-791.
    18. Stühmeier, Torben, 2012. "Roaming and investments in the mobile internet market," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 595-607.
    19. Genakos, Christos & Valletti, Tommaso, 2012. "Regulating prices in two-sided markets: The waterbed experience in mobile telephony," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 360-368.
    20. Ángel L. López & Patrick Rey, 2016. "Foreclosing Competition Through High Access Charges and Price Discrimination," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 436-465, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mobile termination rates; consumer charges; firms’ profit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:nhhfms:2012_010. 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: Stein Fossen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dfnhhno.html .

    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.