Market Entry, Fighting Brands, and Tacit Collusion: Evidence from the French Mobile Telecommunications Market

Marc Bourreau, Yutec Sun and Frank Verboven

American Economic Review, 2021, vol. 111, issue 11, 3459-99

Abstract: We study a major new entry in the French mobile telecommunications market, followed by the introduction of fighting brands by the three incumbents. Using an empirical oligopoly model, we find that the incumbents' fighting brand strategies are difficult to rationalize as unilateral best responses. Instead, their strategies are consistent with a breakdown of tacit semi-collusion: before entry, the incumbents could successfully coordinate on restricting product variety to avoid cannibalization; after entry, this outcome became harder to sustain because of increased business stealing incentives. Consumers gained considerably from the added variety and, to a lesser extent, from the incumbents' price responses.

JEL-codes: L13 L21 L96 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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DOI: 10.1257/aer.20190540

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