The economics of federalism is a broad discipline with more than five decades of experience. It may shed light on how regulatory jurisdiction is allocated in EU electricity and telecommunications markets. Specifically, this paper assesses the evolution of reform up to and including the third EU packages, which continue the liberalization and integration process in these markets. Liberalization ...

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 associate...

The regulation of telecommunications, railroads, and other network industries has been based on mandatory unbundling and facilities sharing – entrants have the option to lease part or all of incumbents’ facilities if and when they desire, at rates determined by regulators. This flexibility is of great value to entrants, but because investments are largely irreversible, it is costly to supply by...

In 1996 Congress passed the landmark Telecommunications Act (hereafter “the Act”). The Act, under Section 271, allowed the Regional Bell Operating Companies to offer long distance service to their local customers in exchange for opening their own local networks to local competitors in that state. Using a state-level panel data set we evaluate the effect of FCC Section 271 decisions on entry int...

We consider how government-owned enterprises affect privately owned rivals. Specifically, we compare the types of markets that municipally owned telecommunications providers in the United States serve to the types of markets that competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) serve. We find that CLECs focus on potential profitability while municipalities appear to respond to other factors, such as...

Entry in Telecommunication: Customer Loyalty, Price Sensitivity and Access Prices* The purpose of this article is to investigate the prospects for entry into an existing network in the telecommunication industry, and how public policy may promote a more competitive outcome. We apply a model that captures the fact that the incumbent has an installed base of loyal consumers, that some consumers a...

In this paper we analyze the demand for mobile telecommunication services in Germany in the period from January 1998 to June 2003. During this time, the subscriber base grew exponentially by about 700% while prices declined only moderately by about 41%. We believe that prices alone cannot account for such rapid diffusion and network effects have influenced the evolution of the industry. We put ...

The main aim of this paper is to determine the factors which enhance or temper firms’ private incentives to use communications technologies that are characterised by network externalities and allow firms to influence their rate of technological change or total factor productivity (TFP). As regards the impact of the network effect on TFP, we find that when the externality parameter is low, a sli...

This research makes use of a large sample of individual telephone calls between local exchanges (cities, towns, villages) within a U.S. region. The interlocational flows, measured in conversation seconds, are analyzed by estimating, in a simultaneous equation framework, spatial interaction models that account for (1) the role of the spatial structure, which reflects the competition and agglomer...

Network shares and retail prices are not symmetric in the telecommunications market with multiple bottlenecks which give rise to new questions of access fee regulation. In this paper we consider a model with two types of asymmetry arising from different entry timing, i.e. a larger reputation for the incumbent and lower cost of servicing for the entrant as a result of more advanced technology. A...