IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000508/016418.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Welfare Effects of Switching Barriers Through Permanence Clauses: Evidence from the Mobiles Market in Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Álvaro Riascos
  • Juan David Martín
  • Natalia Serna

Abstract

During 2014, the Comisión de Regulación de Comunicaciones in Colombia enacted a Resolution by which permanence clauses or fixed-length terms in mobile telecommunications contracts were prohibited for network operators offering bundled mobile terminals and voice plans. Prohibition was enacted under the argument permanence clauses create switching costs, reduce competition, and generate information asymmetries. In this study we measure the impact of the Resolution on consumer, firm, and social welfare by estimating the structural demand for mobile terminals and conducting two counterfactual scenarios. We show switching costs by means of permanence clauses reduce consumer utility and increase the variance of the utility distribution. We also show the Colombian market for mobile terminals has been better off without permanence clauses, with both consumers and firms experiencing gains from the prohibition. However, variation in firm surplus is explained mostly by the variation in profits of incumbent network operators than by the variation in profits of firms selling terminals at cash price. Our study contributes to the literature of bundled sales and switching costs and is crucial from the perspective of regulation and industrial policy in the telecommunications sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Álvaro Riascos & Juan David Martín & Natalia Serna, 2017. "Welfare Effects of Switching Barriers Through Permanence Clauses: Evidence from the Mobiles Market in Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo 16418, Quantil.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000508:016418
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://quantil.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/006_MartinSernaRiascos.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee, Jongsu & Kim, Yeonbae & Lee, Jeong-Dong & Park, Yuri, 2006. "Estimating the extent of potential competition in the Korean mobile telecommunications market: Switching costs and number portability," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 107-124, January.
    2. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers, 2010. "Competitive Non-linear Pricing and Bundling," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(1), pages 30-60.
    3. Crawford, Gregory S. & Cullen, Joseph, 2007. "Bundling, product choice, and efficiency: Should cable television networks be offered a la carte?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3-4), pages 379-404, October.
    4. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    5. Tim Burnett, 2014. "The Impact of Service Bundling on Consumer Switching Behaviour: Evidence from UK Communication Markets," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 14/321, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    6. Gregory S. Crawford & Ali Yurukoglu, 2012. "The Welfare Effects of Bundling in Multichannel Television Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 643-685, April.
    7. Crawford, Gregory & Shcherbakov, Oleksandr & Shum, Matthew, 2015. "The Welfare E ects of Endogenous Quality Choice in Cable Television Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 10793, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Eugenio J. Miravete, 2002. "Estimating Demand for Local Telephone Service with Asymmetric Information and Optional Calling Plans," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 943-971.
    9. Beggs, Alan W & Klemperer, Paul, 1992. "Multi-period Competition with Switching Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(3), pages 651-666, May.
    10. Tallberg, Mathias & Hämmäinen, Heikki & Töyli, Juuso & Kamppari, Sauli & Kivi, Antero, 0. "Impacts of handset bundling on mobile data usage: The case of Finland," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(10-11), pages 648-659, November.
    11. Economides, Nicholas, 1999. "The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its impact1," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 455-483, December.
    12. Yannis Bakos & Erik Brynjolfsson, 2000. "Bundling and Competition on the Internet," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 63-82, 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. Ying Fan & Chenyu Yang, 2020. "Competition, Product Proliferation, and Welfare: A Study of the US Smartphone Market," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 99-134, May.
    2. Wang, Ao, 2021. "A BLP Demand Model of Product-Level Market Shares with Complementarity," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1351, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    3. Javier Donna & Andre Trindade & Pedro Pereira & Tiago Pires, 2018. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediation in Vertical Markets," 2018 Meeting Papers 984, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Iaria, Alessandro & ,, 2020. "Identification and Estimation of Demand for Bundles," CEPR Discussion Papers 14363, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Bronwyn E. Howell & Petrus H. Potgieter, 2018. "Bundles of trouble: Can competition law adapt to digital pricing innovation?," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 19(1-2), pages 3-24, March.
    6. Waterman, David & Sherman, Ryland & Wook Ji, Sung, 2013. "The economics of online television: Industry development, aggregation, and “TV Everywhere”," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 725-736.
    7. Anja Lambrecht & Katja Seim & Naufel Vilcassim & Amar Cheema & Yuxin Chen & Gregory Crawford & Kartik Hosanagar & Raghuram Iyengar & Oded Koenigsberg & Robin Lee & Eugenio Miravete & Ozge Sahin, 2012. "Price discrimination in service industries," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 423-438, June.
    8. Doh-Shin Jeon & Domenico Menicucci, 2012. "Bundling and Competition for Slots," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 1957-1985, August.
    9. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    10. Donna, Javier D. & Pereira, Pedro & Pires, Tiago & Trindade, Andre, 2018. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediaries in Vertical Markets," MPRA Paper 90465, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Reiko Murakami, 2022. "Consumer switching behavior and bundling: an empirical study of Japan’s retail energy markets," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 443-463, August.
    12. Donna, Javier D. & Pereira, Pedro & Trindade, Andre & Yoshida, Renan C., 2020. "Direct-to-Consumer Sales by Manufacturers and Bargaining," MPRA Paper 105773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Julie Holland Mortimer, 2007. "Price Discrimination, Copyright Law, and Technological Innovation: Evidence from the Introduction of DVDs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1307-1350.
    14. Nicholas Economides & Katja Seim & V. Brian Viard, 2008. "Quantifying the benefits of entry into local phone service," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(3), pages 699-730, September.
    15. Kate Ho & Robin S. Lee, 2017. "Insurer Competition in Health Care Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 379-417, March.
    16. Kuroda, Toshifumi & Ida, Takanori & Koguchi, Teppei, 2015. "The impact of asymmetric regulation on product bundling: The case of fixed broadband and mobile communications in Japan," 2015 Regional ITS Conference, Los Angeles 2015 146318, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    17. Pagnozzi, Marco & Piccolo, Salvatore & Reisinger, Markus, 2021. "Vertical contracting with endogenous market structure," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    18. Pierre Dubois & Morten Sæthre, 2020. "On the Effect of Parallel Trade on Manufacturers' and Retailers' Profits in the Pharmaceutical Sector," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2503-2545, November.
    19. Herr, A. & Saric, A., 2016. "The Welfare Effects of Single Rooms in German Nursing Homes: A Structural Approach," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 16/23, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    20. Hanming Fang & Peter Norman, 2010. "Optimal Provision of Multiple Excludable Public Goods," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-37, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    switching costs; permanence clauses; structural demand; telecommunications; fixed-length contracts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    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:col:000508:016418. 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: Administrador (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.