A new study forthcoming in the journal Economic Policy, based on a trove of data from 33 OECD countries over a 12-year period (2002-2014), finds that prices paid by consumers are higher in more concentrated markets (by an estimated average of 16.3 per cent in a four-to-three operator merger, according to the study’s model), while at the same time investment per operator increases when the number of providers is reduced (by an estimated 19.3 per cent in a four-to-three merger). The effect of such consolidation on total investment by all operators does not appear significant, but those findings are not conclusive. The authors – from Cambridge Judge Business School, Imperial College London, and the University of Leuven in Belgium – argue that regulators have so far focused hard on consumer pricing implications of mobile consolidation, while paying little attention to the impact of mergers on efficiencies and investment.  “The study says that regulators and policymakers should consider investment more seriously, and weigh more fully the trade-off between consumer pricing and operator efficiency and investment in order to reach the best decisions,” says Dr Christos Genakos, University Senior Lecturer in Economics at Cambridge Judge Business School.

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