Skip to main content
Log in

An Efficient Avoided Cost Pricing Rule for Resale of Local Exchange Telephone Services

  • Published:
Journal of Regulatory Economics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires incumbent local exchange telephone companies to make their retail telecommunications services available to resellers at a discount that reflects the costs that will be avoided by providing the services at wholesale rather than at retail. In this article, we develop a pricing methodology to apply to such wholesale services. The methodology, which we label the Avoided Cost Pricing Rule, is designed to generate an economically efficient discount that may be applied to the incumbent local exchange carriers' services that are offered to resellers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baumol, William J., Januusz A. Ordover, and Robert D. Willig. 1996. “Parity Pricing and its Critics: Necessary Condition for Efficiency in Provision of Bottleneck Services to Competitors.” C.V. Start Center for Applied Economics, New York University.

  • Baumol, William J., John C. Panzar, and Robert D. Willig. 1988. Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

  • Baumol, William J., and Gregory Sidak. 1994. Toward Competition in Local Telephone. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beard, Randolph, and Henry Thompson. 1996. “Efficient Versus ‘Popular’ Tariffs on Regulated Monopolies.” Journal of Business. 69 (January): 75–87.

  • Blair, Roger D., Thomas E. Cooper, and David L. Kaserman. 1985. “A Note on Vertical Integration as Entry.” International Journal of Industrial Organization, 3: 219–229.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bork, Robert H. The Antitrust Paradox. 2978: 365–381.

  • Bowman, Ward S. 1957. “Tying Arrangements and the Leveraging Problem.” Yale Law Review. 67: 19–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carbajo, Jose, David de Mcza, and Michael Seidmann. 1990. “A Strategic Motivation for Commodity Bunding.” Journal of Industrial Economics. 38: 283–298.

    Google Scholar 

  • Economics and Technology, Inc/Hatfield Associates. 1994. The Enduring Bottleneck: Monopoly Power and the Local Exchange Carriers.

  • Economides, Nicholas, and Lawrence J. White. Forthcoming. “The Inefficiency of ECPR Yet Again: A Reply to Larson.” The Antitrust Bulletin.

  • Economides, Nicholas, and Lawrence J. White. 1995. “Interconnection Pricing: How Efficient is the Efficient Components Pricing Rule?” The Antitrust Bulletin. 40: 557–579.

    Google Scholar 

  • Federal Communications Commission. First Report and Order. In the Matter of Implementation of the Local Competition Provisions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

  • Federal Communications Commission. Comments and Reply Comments, In the Matter of Implementation of the Local Exchange Provisions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

  • Huber, Peter W., and Michael K. Kellogg, and John Thorne. 1992. The Geodesic Network II: 1993 Report on Competition in the Telephone Industry. Washington: The Geodesic Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahn, Alfred E. 1984. “On the Road to More Intelligent Telephone Pricing.” Yale Journal on Regulation. 1(2): 139–158.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplow, Louis. 1985. “Extensions of Monopoly Power Through Leveraging.” Columbia Law Review. 85(3):515–555.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaserman, David L., and John W. Mayo. 1996. “Local Exchange Competition Under Emerging Competition: Goardrails or Speedbumps on the Information Highway.” Working paper.

  • Kaserman, David L., and John W. Mayo. 1995. Government and Business: The Economics of Antitrust and Regulation. Ft. Worth: The Dryden Press. Ch.12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaserman, David L., and John W. Mayo. 1994a. “Cross-Subsidization: Roadblocks on the Road to More Intelligent Telephone Pricing.” Yale Journal on Regulation. 11: 120–147.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaserman, David L., and John W. Mayo. 1994b. “Long-Distance Telecommunications: Expectations and Realizations in the Post-Divestiture Period.” in Incentive Regulation for Public Utilities, ed. by Michael A. Crew. Kluwer Academic Press, 83–111.

  • Kaserman, David L., and John W. Mayo. 1993. Monopoly Leveraging Theory: Implications for Post-Divestiture Telecommunications Policy. Center for Business and Economic Research, the University of TN, Knoxville.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larson, Alexander C. Forthcoming. “The Efficiency of the Efficient Component Pricing Rule: A Comment.” The Antitrust Bulletin.

  • Leibenstein, Harvey. 1996. “Allocative Efficiency vs. X-Efficiency.” American Economic Review. 56: 392–412.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacAvoy, Paul A. 1995. “The Failure of Antitrust and Regulation to Establish Competition in Markets for Long-Distance Telephone Services.” Working Paper, AEI Studies in Telecommunications Deregulation.

  • Ordover, J.A., A.O. Sykes, and R.D. Willig. 1985. “Nonprice Antitrust Behavior by Dominant Firms toward the Producers of Complementary Products.” Antitrust and Regulation: Essays in Memory of John J. McGowan. ed. by Franklin Fisher Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panzar, John C. 1989. “Technological Determinants of Firm and Industry Structure.” in Handbook of Industrial Organization. ed. by Schmalensee and Willig. North-Holland. 1: 3–56.

  • Peltzman, Sam. 1976. “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation.” Journal of Law and Economics. 19 (August): 211–240.

  • Posner, Richard A. 1976. Antitrust Law: An Economic Perspective. 171–184.

  • Seidmann, Daniel J. 1991. “Bundling as a Facilitating Device: A Reinterpretation of the Leverage Theory.” Economica, 58: 491 ff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shin, Richard T., and John S. Ying 1992. “Unnatural Monopolies in Local Telephone.” RAND Journal of Economics. 23 (Summer): 171–187.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sibley, David S., and Dennis L. Weisman. 1995. “Competitive Incentives of Vertically Integrated Local Exchange Carriers.” Mimco.

  • Temin, Peter. 1990. “Cross-Subsidies in the Telephone Network after Divestiture.” Journal of Regulatory Economics. 2: 349–362.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiman, David F., and Richard C. Levin. 1994. “Preying for Monopoly? The Case of Southern Bell Telephone Company, 1894–1912.” Journal of Political Economy. 102 (February): 103–126.

  • Whinston, Michael D. “Tying, Foreclosure, and Exclusion.” American Economic Review. 80: 837–859.

  • Wollenburg, Keith K. 1987. “An Economic Analysis of Tie In Sales: Re-Examining the Leverage Theory.” Stanford University Law Review. 39: 737 ff.

Download references

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kaserman, D.L., Mayo, J.W. An Efficient Avoided Cost Pricing Rule for Resale of Local Exchange Telephone Services. Journal of Regulatory Economics 11, 91–107 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007910531141

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007910531141

Keywords

Navigation