Much ado about nothing? Online platform price parity clauses and the EU Booking.com case

Andrea Mantovani, Claudio Piga and Carlo Reggiani

Economics Discussion Paper Series from Economics, The University of Manchester

Abstract: Online platforms often impose Price Parity Clauses to prevent sellers from charging lower prices on alternative sales channels. We provide quasi-experimental evidence on the full removal of Price Parity Clauses in France in 2015 and in Italy in 2017 for hotels listed on Booking.com. Our analysis reveals a relatively limited effect in the short run followed by a significant reduction in room prices in the medium run. Moreover, we find that hotels affiliated with chains decreased their prices more than independent hotels, both in the short and medium run. Overall, the policy interventions led to substantive savings for consumers.

JEL-codes: D40 K21 L11 L42 L81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:man:sespap:1909

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