Impact of Roaming Regulation on Revenues and Prices of Mobile Operators in the EU

Abstract

We empirically assess the impact of the EU roaming regulation on mobile operators' average revenues per user (ARPU) and retail prices. Using a differences-in-difference approach, hedonic price regressions and detailed operator and plan-level data we find that the regulation decreased mobile operator's revenues per user, while it had no impact on tariffs during the latest phase of the regulation.

The End of Tourist Traps: The Impact of Review Platforms on Quality Upgrading

“…The last decisive step took place on June 15, 2017, when wholesale and retail price caps for data were set to 0. Grzybowski and Muñoz (2020) show that the European Commission has succeeded to avoid unintended increases in domestic tariffs and induced operators to absorb the negative effects of the reform. At the same time, Quinn et al (2021) show that, after the policy, daily mobile data consumption (sum of uploads and downloads) for EU travelers while abroad grew by at least 54MB.…”