Download or read book The Determinants and Impact of Telecommunications Reforms in Developing Countries written by Laura Recuero Virto and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper has two related objectives. First, it seeks to identify the key determinants of some policies that have been at the heart of the reforms of the telecommunications industry in developing countries, namely, liberalization, privatization, and the (re)structuring of regulation. Second, it attempts to estimate the extent to which these policies have translated into actual deployment of telecommunications infrastructure. This simultaneous investigation is conducted by means of an econometric analysis of a 1985-1999 time-series cross- sectional database on 86 developing countries. Sectoral as well as institutional and financial factors are found to be important determinants of the actual reforms implemented. We uncover a positive relationship between the decision to introduce competition in the digital cellular segment and the growth of the fixed-line segment, suggesting that these two segments have benefited from each other. We also find that countries facing increasing institutional risk and financial constraints are more likely to introduce competition in the digital cellular segment and to privatize the fixed-line incumbent, these policies being economically attractive to both investors and governments. In turn, these policies are those that enhance the deployment of fixed-line infrastructure. In contrast, competition in the analogue cellular segment and the creation of a separate regulator seem to be relatively less attractive policies as they are found to be less likely to be introduced in countries facing increasing institutional risk and budget constraints. Their impact on fixed network deployment is found to be negative or non significant.

Download or read book The Determinants and Impact of Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries written by Farid Gasmi and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper has two related objectives. First, it seeks to identify the key determinants of some policies that have been at the heart of the reforms of the telecommunications industry in developing countries, namely, liberalization, privatization, and the (re)structuring of regulation. Second, it attempts to estimate the extent to which these policies have translated into actual deployment of telecommunications infrastructure. This simultaneous investigation is conducted by means of an econometric analysis of a 1985-1999 time-series-cross-sectional database on 86 developing countries. Sectoral as well as institutional and financial factors are found to be important determinants of the actual reforms implemented. We uncover a positive relationship between the decision to introduce competition in the digital cellular segment and the growth of the fixed-line segment, suggesting that these two segments have benefited from each other. We also find that countries facing increasing institutional risk and financial constraints are more likely to introduce competition in the digital cellular segment and to privatize the fixed-line incumbent, these policies being economically attractive to both investors and governments. In turn, these policies are those that enhance the deployment of fixed-line infrastructure. In contrast, competition in the analogue cellular segment and the creation of a separate regulator seem to be relatively less attractive policies as they are found to be less likely to be introduced in countries facing increasing institutional risk and budget constraints. Their impact on fixed network deployment is found to be negative or non significant.

Download or read book Telecommunications Reforms in Developing Countries written by Laura Recuero Virto and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this book is to bring some light to the specificities of infrastructure industries in developing countries under the lessons derived from empirical analyses of the telecommunications sector. This work points out that policies followed in developing countries for the provision of telecommunications services in rural areas significantly differ from those implemented in developed countries in their fundamental objectives, the technological strategies deployed and the market and institutional environments they rest on. Moreover, investment efforts in rural areas could be rewarding both for the firm and consumers, particularly during peak hours when economic exchanges take place. This research also puts forward that the initial infrastructure deployment, the institutional risk and the financial constraints play a key role on defining infrastructure deployment through the reforms selected by the government. In addition, political accountability is a much more relevant determinant of regulatory performance in developing than in developed countries. The analysis should be especially useful to policy makers and researchers on the field of infrastructure in developing economies.

Download or read book Implementing Reforms in the Telecommunications Sector written by Bjorn Wellenius and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a compilation of information from a worldwide pool of experts on their practical experiences in telecommunications sector reform. This study compiles a wealth of information from a worldwide pool of experts on their practical experiences in telecommunications sector reform. It provides an up-to-date account of approaches to the major policy and structural issues and describes developments in Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe. The study also examines issues related to investment, regulation, and implementation. While each of the eight parts centers on a particular aspect of telecommunications sector reform, the study highlights several recurring themes and looks at a number of country experiences from the perspective of policymakers, regulators, investors, operators, the international development community, and other industry specialists. This volume provides valuable information on how to implement telecommunications reforms, offers insights into the effectiveness of these reforms, and identifies critical areas in which further discussion of related policy and implementation issues in this increasingly important economic sector.

Download or read book An Assessment of Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries written by Carsten Fink and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Regulatory Reforms in the Telecommunications Sector in Developing Countries written by Lixin Colin Xu and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We investigate the determinants of regulatory reforms between 1990 and 1998 in 50 developing countries. We find that the reforms are attributable to differences in the configurations of interest groups and in the political structure - in particular, the decision-making mechanisms and the ideology of the legislature. Regulatory reforms are more likely in countries with strong pro-reform interest groups (a larger financial sector and a greater proportion of urban consumers) and less likely in countries where incumbent operators have already made large investments and hence have strong incentives to oppose the reforms. Democracy facilitates the actions of interest groups.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries written by Ben Petrazzini and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1995-10-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a policy-making theoretical framework and on the recent experiences of 10 developing countries, this study explores the factors that lead to the success or failure of telecommunications reform. It provides universal conclusions that might help predict the success or failure of telecommunications policies, such as, privatization and liberalization, in other nations that are moving towards reform. This book is an original contribution to our understanding of the rapid and often complex transformations in telecommunications policies. It defies previous assumptions about conditions for success and failure of policy implementation. Although numerous publications deal with telecommunications policy reform in Europe or the United States, little has been written about it in the developing world. This book fills the gap and will be invaluable for academics, policy makers, and others concerned with communications, economic development, and international business.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Telecommunication Reform in Developing Countries written by Ben A. Petrazzini and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 702 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book An Assessment of Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries written by Carsten Fink and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fink, Mattoo, and Rathindran analyze the effect of policy reform in basic telecommunications on sectoral performance using a new panel data set for 86 developing countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean over the period 1985 to 1999. The authors address three questions:ʼn What impact do specific policy changes - relating to ownership and competition - have on sectoral performance?ʼn How is the impact of change in any one policy affected by the implementation of the other, and by the overall regulatory framework?ʼn Does the sequence in which reforms are implemented affect performance?The authors find that both privatization and competition lead to significant improvements in performance. But a comprehensive reform program, involving both policies and the support of an independent regulator, produced the largest gains - an 8 percent higher level of mainlines and a 21 percent higher level of productivity compared to years of partial and no reform. Interestingly, the sequence of reform matters: mainline penetration is lower if competition is introduced after privatization, rather than at the same time. The authors also find that autonomous factors, such as technological progress, have a strong influence on telecommunications performance, accounting for an increase of 5 percent a year in teledensity and 9 percent in productivity over the period 1985 to 1999.This paper - a product of Trade, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to improve our understanding of services reform. This research is supported in part by a grant from the United Kingdom Department for International Development.

Download or read book Telecommunications Reform in the Asia Pacific Region written by Allan Brown and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book attempts to draw lessons from the experiences of developed as well as developing countries in carrying out telecommunications reform. Contributors come from academia, as well as from stakeholders in telecommunications policy in a dozen countries, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region. Globally, the telecommunications industry is undergoing major changes: technological advances in the form of a vast number of new digitised services, ownership shifts as state-owned carriers in many countries become fully or partly privatized, and a general transition from monopolistic to more competitive market environments. The economic and regulatory experiences derived from these changes are explored and analyzed using the USA, the UK, Australia and Singapore to represent developed and newly industrialized countries, and China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam as examples of developing countries. The conclusions outlined in this timely volume hold important lessons for these as well as for other countries. This book will be of great interest to telecommunications policymakers, public and private stakeholders in the industry, along with those - especially academics and researchers - with an interest in the progress of telecommunications in developing countries.

Download or read book The Role of Institutional Design in the Conduct of Infrastructure Industry Reforms An Illustration Through Telecommunications in Developing Countries written by Farid Gasmi and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper is concerned with the role of political and economic institutions in the conduct of the infrastructure industries reform process in developing countries. Our point of departure is that the specific features of these countries' economies should be accounted for when considering policy design. We discuss the main results and policy lessons drawn from two studies of the telecommunications sector based on an econometric analysis of time-series-cross-sectional data on developed and developing countries. We synthesise the main empirical findings and policy implications pertaining to two issues. The first issue concerns the impact of the quality of institutions on the function of regulation. Our review points to the fact that political accountability of institutional systems is a key determinant of regulatory performance, in particular in developing countries. The second issue relates to the factors that shape the sectoral reforms themselves and the impact of these reforms on the development of the industry in developing countries. Our main conclusion is that countries' institutional risk and financial constraints are among the major factors that explain which reforms are actually implemented.

Download or read book The Role of Institutional Design in the Conduct of Infrastructure Industries Reforms An Illustration through Telecommunications in Developing Countries written by Farid Gasmi and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper discusses the relationship between the quality of political and economic institutions and the performance of the infrastructure industries reform process in developing countries. Our point of departure is that, when thinking about this relationship, it is necessary to take into account the specific features of these countries' economies (Gasmi and Recuero Virto, 2005, Laffont, 2005). Based on two econometric analysis of time-series-cross-sectional data on the telecommunications sector, we present the empirical findings and policy implications pertaining two issues (Gasmi et al., 2006, Gasmi and Recuero Virto, 2007). The first issue concerns the impact of the quality of institutions on the performance of regulation. Our review points to the fact that political accountability of institutional systems is a key determinant of regulatory performance. The second issue relates to the factors that shape the sectorial reforms themselves and the impact on these reforms on the development of the industry. Our main conclusion is that countries' institutional risk and financial constraints are among the major factors that explain which reforms are actually implemented.

Download or read book Policy Reform Economic Growth and the Digital Divide written by David Wheeler and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The digital divide reflects a gap in telecom access, not lower propensity to use the Internet in poor countries. Promoting access for poor households will help, but pro-competitive policy holds the key to rapid progress in narrowing the divide.Rapid growth of Internet use in high-income economies has raised the specter of a digital divide that will marginalize developing countries because they can neither afford Internet access nor use it effectively when it is available.Using a new cross-country data set, Dasgupta, Lall, and Wheeler investigate two proximate determinants of the digital divide: Internet intensity (Internet subscriptions per telephone mainline) and access to telecom services. Surprisingly, they find no gap in Internet intensity.When differences in urbanization and competition policy are controlled for, low-income countries have intensities as high as those of industrial countries. While income does not seem to matter in this context, competition policy matters a great deal. Low-income countries with high World Bank ratings for competition policy have significantly higher Internet intensities.The authors' finding on Internet intensity implies that the digital divide is not really new, but reflects a persistent gap in the availability of mainline telephone services. After identifying mobile telephones as a promising new platform for Internet access, they use panel data to study the determinants of mobile telephone diffusion during the past decade. Their results show that income explains part of the diffusion lag for poor countries, but they also highlight the critical role of policy. Developing countries whose policies promote economic growth and private sector competition have experienced much more rapid diffusion of mobile telephone services.Simulations based on the econometric results suggest that feasible reforms could sharply narrow the digital divide during the next decade for many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The authors' review of the literature also suggests that direct access promotion would yield substantial benefits for poor households and that cost-effective intervention strategies are now available.This paper - a product of Infrastructure and Environment, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to identify effective policies for narrowing the digital divide.

Download or read book Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries written by Roger G. Noll and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since World War II, developing nations have embarked on two massive changes in telecommunications policy. The first was the wave of nationalization of private companies that took place mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, and the second is the now ongoing process of re-privatization and, to a lesser degree, the introduction of competition. The purpose of this essay is to set forth the problems of contemporary neoliberal policy reform within the historical, economic and political context of these countries to assess the success of reform to date and to suggest future directions for research that might improve the performance of the sector. The existing literature well documents the decline in performance during the nationalization era and the improvements that reform usually brings; however, relatively little is known about the relationship between the details of reform and subsequent performance, or about the institutional factors that contribute to the stability of reform. The main conclusions are: (1) the recent literature on policy reform probably understates the importance of constructing regulatory governance institutions that are not captured by the newly reformed incumbent monopolist; (2) reform in some countries has focused too much on maximizing the revenues from the sale of state-owned enterprises rather than the long-run economic benefits of reform to consumers and society at large; and (3) too little attention has been given to creating an institutional environment, regulatory and legal, that supports a private and, where possible, competitive industry. The paper also argues that small developing countries probably should not allocate scarce educated technical civil servants to regulation, but should either adopt relatively simple "benchmark" systems or, better still, form multinational agencies for regulating prices and service standards.

Download or read book Taxing Telecommunications in Developing Countries written by Ms.Thornton Matheson and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developing countries apply numerous sector-specific taxes to telecommunications, whose buoyant revenues and formal enterprises provide a convenient “tax handle”. This paper explores whether there is an economic rationale for sector-specific taxes on telecommunications and, if so, what form they should take to balance the competing goals of promoting connectivity and mobilizing revenues. A survey of the literature finds that limited telecoms competition likely creates rents that could efficiently be taxed. We propose a “pecking order” of sector-specific taxes that could be levied in addition to standard income and value-added taxes, based on capturing rents and minimizing distortions. Taxes that target possible economic rents or profits are preferable, but their administrative challenges may necessitate reliance on service excises at the cost of higher consumer prices and lower connectivity. Taxes on capital inputs and consumer access, which distort production and restrict network access, should be avoided; so should tax incentives, which are not needed to attract foreign capital to tap a local market.

Download or read book Utilities Reforms and Corruption in Developing Countries written by Antonio Estache and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper shows empirically that "privatization" in the energy, telecommunications, and water sectors, and the introduction of independent regulators in those sectors, have not always had the expected effects on access, affordability, or quality of services. It also shows that corruption leads to adjustments in the quantity, quality, and price of services consistent with the profit-maximizing behavior that one would expect from monopolies in the sector. The results suggest that privatization and the introduction of independent regulators have, at best, only partial effects on the consequences of corruption for access, affordability, and quality of utility services.

Download or read book 2006 Information and Communications for Development written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: """The report is essential reading for policy makers, government workers, and academics pursuing the goal of equitable, sustainable development across the world."" - N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor Infosys Technologies Ltd. Information and communication technology (ICT) is rapidly evolving, changing rich and poor societies alike. It has become a powerful tool for participating in the global economy and for offering new opportunities for development efforts. ICT can and should advance economic growth and reduce poverty in developing countries. It has been 20 years since the first telephone operator was privatized, a little over 10 since the World Wide Web emerged, and 5 since the telecommunications bubble burst. How have the ICT sector and its role in development evolved? What have we learned? How can we move forward? Information and Communications for Development 2006: Global Trends and Policies contains lessons from both developed and developing countries. It examines the roles of the public and private sectors, identifying the challenges and the benefits of adopting and expanding ICT use. The report assesses topics essential to building an information society, including investment, access, diffusion, and country policies and strategies. Assessing what has worked, what hasn't, and why, this report is an invaluable guide for understanding how to capture the benefits of ICT around the world."