The potential role of economic cost models in the regulation of telecommunications in developing countries (original) (raw)
Related papers
2000
Worldwide privatization of the telecommunications industry and the introduction of competition in the sector, altogether with the ever-increasing rate of technological advance in telecommunications, raise new and critical challenges for regulation. For matters of pricing, universal service obligations, and the like, one of the key questions to be answered is: "What is the efficient cost of providing the service to a certain area or type of customer?" As developing countries move forward with their efforts to build up their capacity to regulate their privatized infrastructure monopolies, cost models are likely to prove increasingly important in answering this question. Costs models deliver a number of benefits to a regulator willing to apply them, but they also ask for something in advance: information. Without this vital element no answer can be given to the question posed above. In this paper, we will introduce cost models and establish their applicability when different degrees of information are available to the regulator. The latter is accomplished by running the model with different sets of actual data from Argentina's second largest city and comparing the results. Reliable and detailed information is generally a scarce good in developing countries, and we establish here the minimum information requirements that a regulator needs to implement a cost proxy model approach, showing that this 'data constraint' need not be that binding.
Are Cost Models Useful for Telecoms Regulators in Developing Countries?
Policy Research Working Papers, 1999
toX tP -CZ3 gy POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER 23 84 Are Cost Models Useful As developing countnes build up their capacity to regulate for Telecoms Regulators privatized infrastructure in Developing Countries? monopolies, cost models are likely to prove increasingly important in determining the Daniel A. Benitez efficient cost of providing a Antonio Estache service to a certain area or D. Mark Kennet type of customer. But cost Christian A. Ruzzier models require reliable information, which is often scarce in developing countries. Census data and the location of wire services together may help provide the minimum information a regulator needs to implement a cost proxy model, a promising regulatory tool for assessing the efficient cost of providing a utility service.
Telecommunications Policies: Measurement and Determinants
Review of Network Economics, 2006
This paper presents new data on telecommunications reform for a cross section of countries. We measure telecommunications reform along two dimensions: entry barriers and regulatory independence. This data set is combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze the determinants of telecommunications policies. We find that entry barriers are positively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist legal tradition, but they are unrelated to the partisan ideology of reforming governments. We also find that countries with weak protection of investors' quasi-rents by other means, and countries with a larger incumbent, are more prone to create independent regulatory agencies, although the latter is a weaker result.
Telecommunication Reforms in Developing Countries
Communications & Strategies, 2005
Major innovations have pushed telecommunication costs down and demand up since the mid-1980s. The new segments of the mobile and the internet markets are hence suitable for oligopolistic competition. Reforms of the former public monopoly have been necessary to accommodate the entry of new operators. It is important to disentangle the effect of market liberalization that occurred in response to technological change and demand growth from the effects of privatizations resulting from structural adjustment programs. In line with popular opinion, privatization per se did not benefit consumers much. The biggest improvements for consumers have been driven by competition from mobile telecommunication firms. Governments should concentrate on liberalizing the mobile and internet segments. For the incumbent telecom operator, allocative inefficiency combined with the critical budgetary conditions found in most developing countries favour public ownership. This is an effective way of combining the regulation of the firm with a maximum level of taxation.
Telecommunications Policies: Determinants and Impact
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003
This paper presents new data, in the form of four indices, on liberalization policies and the independence of regulators for a cross-section of countries. These indices are combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze both the determinants and the impact of telecommunications policies. We find that liberalization policies are negatively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist tradition, but not with the partisan ideology of reforming countries per se. We also find that countries where the institutional endowment constrains less the behaviour of the executive bodies, and countries with a stronger incumbent, are more prone to create truly independent regulatory agencies. There is weak evidence that the creation of independent regulatory agencies has a positive effect on network penetration when we take into account the endogeneity of regulatory independence.
Review of Network Economics, 2000
Infrastructure industries including telecommunications, electricity, water, and gas underwent massive structural changes during the 1990s. During that decade, hundreds of privatization transactions valued at billions of dollars were completed in these sectors in developing and transitional economies. While privatization has received the most attention, reforms also included market liberalization, structural changes like unbundling, and the introduction of new laws and regulations. To date, regulations have received far less attention than their potential economic effects warrant, largely due to lack of data. In order to address this problem, we set out to compile an extensive, comprehensive, and consistent dataset through an extensive survey of telecommunications and electricity regulators in developing countries. Our database of telecommunications regulations includes 178 variables on regulatory governance and content in 45 countries. Our database of electricity regulations includes 374 variables in 20 countries.
Telecommunications development: policy recommendations for developing countries
1996
ABSTRACT Reform of the telecommunications sector has been a worldwide policy trend since the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan drastically reorganized their domestic industries in the early 1980s. Competition has been introduced into a previously monopolistic telecommunications market by many developing as well as industrialized countries. In earlier periods, however, telecommunications monopolies effectively developed national telecommunications networks.