Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/27156 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Bonn Econ Discussion Papers No. 15/2007
Publisher: 
University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study an industry in which an upstream monopolist supplies an essential input at a regulated price to several downstream firms. Legal unbundling means that a downstream firm owns the upstream firm but this upstream firm is legally independent and maximizes its own upstream profits. We allow for non-tariff discrimination by the upstream firm and show that under quite general conditions legal unbundling yields (weakly) higher quantities in the downstream market than vertical separation and integration. Therefore, typically consumer surplus will be largest under legal unbundling. Outcomes under legal unbundling are still advantageous when we allow for discriminatory capacity investments, investments into marginal cost reduction and investments into network reliability. If access prices are unregulated, however, legal unbundling may be quite undesirable.
Subjects: 
Network industries
regulation
vertical relations
investments
ownership
sabotage
JEL: 
D2
D4
L1
L42
L43
L51
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.