Review of Economic Studies · 2021 · Gaurab Aryal、Federico Ciliberto、Benjamin T. Leyden
中文摘要
我们考察了这样一项指控:美国传统航空公司通过业绩电话会议与其他传统航空公司沟通,以协调在竞争性航线上减少座位供给。为此,我们首先运用文本分析,构建了一个关于航空公司之间就其运力选择进行沟通的新数据集。基于我们首选设定的估计结果显示,当某一市场中的所有传统航空公司都讨论「运力纪律」这一概念时,所提供的座位数会减少2%。我们验证了这种削减仅在各传统航空公司同时进行沟通时才会出现,且无法由其他可能性解释,包括航空公司只是在向投资者宣布其单方面削减运力的计划,随后兑现这些公告。
Abstract
Abstract We investigate the allegation that legacy US airlines communicated via earnings calls to coordinate with other legacy airlines in offering fewer seats on competitive routes. To this end, we first use text analytics to build a novel dataset on communication among airlines about their capacity choices. Estimates from our preferred specification show that the number of offered seats is 2$\%$ lower when all legacy airlines in a market discuss the concept of “capacity discipline.” We verify that this reduction materializes only when legacy airlines communicate concurrently, and that it cannot be explained by other possibilities, including that airlines are simply announcing to investors their unilateral plans to reduce capacity, and then following through on those announcements.