We examine if and how incumbent firms respond to entry and entry threats using non-price modes of competition. Our analysis focuses on airline service quality. We find that incumbent on-time performance (OTP) actually worsens in response to entry, and even entry threats, by Southwest Airlines....

We examine how mergers affect quality provision by analyzing five U.S. airline mergers, focusing on on-time performance (OTP). We find that airline mergers have minimal negative impacts on OTP, and likely result in long-run improvements due to efficiencies. Importantly, we show that this finding...