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Broad and narrow price parity agreements: Evidence from European hotels

Ben Klopack & Nicola Pierri

International Journal of Industrial Organization2026https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2026.103265article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of “price parity” clauses in contracts between hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs). These restrictions require a hotel to set its lowest prices for a given room on a travel agency’s website and have come under recent scrutiny by antitrust regulators. We use a synthetic control strategy to study a series of policy changes in Europe using novel data on transacted hotel prices and occupancy. Our analysis finds that (i) restricting the broadest form of parity clauses, but leaving in place a more limited version, reduced prices by about 1.5% and increased occupancy by 1 percentage point; (ii) relative to narrow parity, a complete ban on parity clauses reduced prices by between 0 and 4%, but had no impact on occupancy.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2026.103265

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@article{ben2026,
  title        = {{Broad and narrow price parity agreements: Evidence from European hotels}},
  author       = {Ben Klopack & Nicola Pierri},
  journal      = {International Journal of Industrial Organization},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2026.103265},
}

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Broad and narrow price parity agreements: Evidence from European hotels

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.