Research Catalog

Title

The failure of antitrust and regulation to establish competition in long-distance telephone services / Paul W. MacAvoy.

Author

MacAvoy, Paul W.

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press ; Washington, D.C. : AEI Press, 1996.

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Holdings

Details

Description

xviii, 314 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

• With the antitrust decree breaking up the Bell System in 1984, the federal court overseeing the Modification of Final Judgment took on the task of determining how markets for long-distance telephone service would evolve from a regulated public utility structure to an open, competitive one. The Justice Department was to monitor the growth of competition, and the Federal Communications Commission was to regulate entry and prices.
• In effect, three regulatory organizations, through daily rulemaking, were to set new conditions that would make further regulation redundant and would effect competitive entry and pricing.
• In the decade since the decree, those organizations developed elaborate procedures for specifying the service offerings of actual and potential competitors. Two main thrusts of "transition to competition" policy have emerged - prevention of competition from local carriers that were part of the Bell System and prevention of unauthorized price differences between AT&T and the smaller long-distance carriers.
• The resulting effects on competition are the focus of this new monograph in the AEI Studies in Telecommunications Deregulation.
• Paul MacAvoy concludes that antitrust and regulation have failed to make long-distance markets competitive, to the detriment of consumers seeking prices in line with the costs of providing long-distance services. MacAvoy assess the competitiveness of the major service providers - AT&T, MCI, and Sprint - in terms of changes in price-cost margins for all important long-distance services since 1984.
• He shows that as service provider concentration has decreased, price-cost margins of the three carriers have increased.

Series Statement

AEI studies in telecommunications deregulation

Uniform Title

AEI studies in telecommunications deregulation.

Subjects

• Long distance telephone service > United States
• Telephone > Deregulation > United States
• Competition > United States
• Corporate divestiture > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-290) and indexes.

Contents

1. The Importance of Competitiveness in Long-Distance Markets -- 2. Intentions of Antitrust and Regulatory Policies as to Competitiveness -- 3. Implementing Regulatory and Antitrust Policies on Developing Competition after 1984 -- 4. Concentration Levels and Service Provider Conduct in Long-Distance Markets after 1984 -- 5. Testing for Competitiveness in Changes in Price-Cost Margins -- 6. Prospects for Competition under Telecommunications Regulatory Reform -- App. 1. Discount Plan Summary -- App. 2. Sensitivity Analysis of Prices and Price-Cost Margins of Discount Calling Plans -- App. 3. Standard and Discount Prices in International Markets -- App. 4. Price-Cost Margins and Market Concentration in International Markets.

ISBN

0262133326 (alk. paper)

LCCN

96021011

OCLC

• 34912607
• ocm34912607

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries