The Regulation of British Telecom: An Event Study

In this paper, we use event-study methods to analyze the post-privatization regulatory regime applying to telecommunications in the UK. Our results suggest that telecoms regulation has not been captured in an overall sense, although there is an heterogeneous pattern of regulatory events. The results are consistent with recent observations of Spiller and Vogelsang, who argue that the regulatory framework for UK telecoms is designed to maintain substantial checks on the regulator's discretion, operating mainly through the rule of law. Our broad conclusion is that the impacts of regulation indicate a relatively soft attitude to British Telecom up to 1995, when a tightening of regulation tended to offset the previous bias.