Three Private Firms and an Independent Regulator are Sufficient for Rapid Mobile Network Penetration

Yan Li and Bruce Lyons
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Yan Li: Oxford Brookes Business School
Bruce Lyons: Centre for Competition Policy and School of Economics, UEA

No 2011-01, Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) from Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: The speed of market penetration (i.e. diffusion) is an important summary measure of how well the market works for potential consumers of a new product. This paper identifies the structural features associated with rapid diffusion of mobile telephony. We use a sample of thirty countries over the sixteen years in which average penetration rose from 2% to 97% of the population (earlier studies observed only the initial years of diffusion during which there was typically only one or two networks). We find a non-monotonic effect of market structure, with three firms maximising consumer uptake. Privatization and independent regulation are also important positive factors. Further results show that the market structure effect works only partially through the level of prices.

Keywords: competition; market structure; privatization; independent regulator; mobile network; diffusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L13 L51 L96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uea:ueaccp:2011_01

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