مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد ساختار بازار و سرمایه گذاری در صنعت تلفن همراه (الزویر)

The impact of market structure, that is the number of firms and asymmetry, on investment has become an important topic in the mobile industry in the context of market concentration as underscored by the 4-to-3 mergers cleared in Austria. The ex-post effects of these changes in market structure have fuelled an ongoing policy debate, particularly in the European Union resulting in tougher scrutiny on future entry and merger in the industry.1 As a matter of fact, a 4-to-3 merger was cleared in Germany, whereas others have been blocked in Denmark and the United Kingdom. A key issue in the policy debate is whether or not investment in mobile networks is endogenous, that is whether it is affected by market structure. Existing theoretical literature predicts an ambiguous effect of market structure on investment.2 In symmetric markets, Vives (2008) finds that investment in cost-reducing innovations falls with the number of firms, provided that demand elasticity is sufficiently small. In asymmetric markets, Schmutzler (2013) shows that the effect of market structure on investment tends to be negative for less efficient firms. In this paper, we investigate the impact of market structure on investment in the European mobile industry, taking into account adjustment costs of investment. Market structure is defined by the number of operators and their market share asymmetry. This latter is measured as the difference between an operator’s market share and the average market share. Investment is measured as the logarithm of capital expenditures, excluding licence fees. We account for the adjustment costs of investment by estimating a dynamic econometric model that links investment to its lagged values. The econometric model is derived from a Salop model with vertical differentiation. Vertical differentiation stems from investment that either lowers marginal costs or increases quality, two key features of investment in mobile networks. The theoretical model predicts that investment in mobile networks depends on the number of operators and their asymmetry in terms of quality. More specifi- cally, in symmetric markets, investment per operator falls with the number of operators, and this effect tends to be larger for lowerquality operators.