Performance in the US telecommunication services industry : An analysis of the impact of deregulation

The impact of deregulation on the performance of firms in the US telecommunication services industry is examined, using extant ideas to suggest that deregulation has differing impacts on different dimensions of firms' performance. The performance of the top 39 local exchange companies is measured over the period 1981-1987 using a multi-period, multi-output ratio analysis model which enables disaggregation of gross performance measures into several detailed components. The findings indicate that deregulation has a significant impact on different dimensions of firms' performance in general, and it is also found that individual firms display different patterns of response in each of these dimensions of performance.