Price parity clauses for hotel room booking: empirical evidence from regulatory change

Sean Ennis, Marc Ivaldi () and Vicente Lagos ()
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Marc Ivaldi: TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Vicente Lagos: IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris

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Abstract: This paper examines the impact of most favored nation (MFN) clauses on retail prices, taking advantage of two natural experiments that changed vertical contracting between hotels and major digital platforms. The broad E.U. intervention narrowed the breadth of "price parity" obligations between hotels and major Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). Direct sales by hotels to customers subsequently became relatively cheaper. Comparisons with hotel pricing outside the E.U. confirm the reduction in prices for mid-level and luxury hotels. France and Germany went further and eliminated all price-parity agreements. This stronger intervention was associated solely with a significant additional price-reducing effect for mid-level hotels in Germany. Overall, wide MFNs are associated with higher retail prices. Regulating MFNs reduced prices with primary effects coming either from the narrow price-parity intervention or, perhaps, from direct sales becoming cheaper than OTAs in both E.U. and non-E.U. countries, and, interestingly, not from complete elimination of MFNs.

Keywords: Price Parity Clause (PPC); Most favored nation (MFN); Most favored customer (MFC); Hotel Industry; Impact Evaluation; Online Travel Agency (OTA); Digital platforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-eec, nep-eur, nep-pay and nep-reg
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04315828v1
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Published in European Journal of Law and Economics, 2023, 66 (2), pp.309-331. ⟨10.1086/723456⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Price-Parity Clauses for Hotel Room Booking: Empirical Evidence from Regulatory Change (2023)
Working Paper: Price Parity Clauses for Hotel Room Booking: Empirical Evidence from Regulatory Change (2020)
Working Paper: Price Parity Clauses for Hotel Room Booking: Empirical Evidence from Regulatory Change (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04315828

DOI: 10.1086/723456

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