An economic analysis of the receiver pays principle

This paper examines the effect of the receiver pays principle (RPP) on the calling price, social welfare and interconnection charge. A significant difficulty with introducing this system in telecommunications pricing is the possibility that the receiving party may refuse to receive a call if the charge he has to bear is very high. We find the condition under which no calls are refused and show that the profit maximizing prices charged to the calling party and the receiving party must satisfy this condition. We demonstrate that the calling price under RPP must be lower than the price under the caller pays principle (CPP), that the profit of a firm will be increased under RPP, but that the consumer surplus will not necessarily be increased under RPP despite the lowered calling price. Also, we show that, if the demand function is linear, the reciprocal interconnection charge under RPP is higher than that under CPP.  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.