Rent-Seeking in the Deregulatory Environment: State Telecommunications

Paul E Teske

Public Choice, 1991, vol. 68, issue 1-3, 235-43

Abstract: Proponents of rent-seeking theories argue that firms pressure and reward politicians and bureaucrats to pursue favorable policies so they can achieve higher than normal, market returns. In an era of deregulation, often with long transition periods toward unregulated competition, how do firms develop specific political strategies to achieve success in rent-seeking? Deregulation of telecommunications at the state level allows comparison of the strategies of the seven firms created in the AT&T divestiture in more than one political jurisdiction. One firm, US West, has pursued the most aggresive political strategy. This paper argues that US WEst executives correctly percieved that the political environment in which they operated differed greatly from that in the rest of the country and that a different deregulatory strategy was appropriate. The firm exploited institutional differences by bypassing state regulators and going directly to state legislators to get favorable policies. Copyright 1991 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1991
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:68:y:1991:i:1-3:p:235-43

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().