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Author: Rui J.P de Figueiredo Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Regulatory outcomes can vary substantially from one US state to the next. For example, at the end of 2002 regulated prices for access to the local loops of incumbent telephone networks varied from $2.79 per month in downtown Chicago, IL to $7.70 in Manhattan, NY to $12.14 in Houston, TX. Regulatory outcomes can also vary substantially over time within a state. For example, the regulated price for local loops in downtown Little Rock, AR rose from $14.00 in 1998 to $18.75 in 2000 before falling to $11.86 by the end of 2002. Obvious economic factors such as technological and geographic cost considerations might explain some of this variation, but cannot explain all. There remain sizeable and varying gaps between regulated prices and costs. This research attempts to explain these gaps using between and within state variation in political and institutional environments. While prior studies have found limited effects of private money (in the form of campaign finance contributions) on legislative outcomes, we find a significant effect of private money on regulatory decisions. A one standard deviation increase in the percentage of contributions in an electoral cycle by entrants to the industry is associated with a fall of around three-tenths of a standard deviation in the regulated local loop price (around $1.36 per month). We also find evidence that legislative ideologies, constituency demographics, state parochial effects and institutional variables all play significant roles in the shaping of important regulatory decisions in the telecommunications industry.
Author: Rui J.P de Figueiredo Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Regulatory outcomes can vary substantially from one US state to the next. For example, at the end of 2002 regulated prices for access to the local loops of incumbent telephone networks varied from $2.79 per month in downtown Chicago, IL to $7.70 in Manhattan, NY to $12.14 in Houston, TX. Regulatory outcomes can also vary substantially over time within a state. For example, the regulated price for local loops in downtown Little Rock, AR rose from $14.00 in 1998 to $18.75 in 2000 before falling to $11.86 by the end of 2002. Obvious economic factors such as technological and geographic cost considerations might explain some of this variation, but cannot explain all. There remain sizeable and varying gaps between regulated prices and costs. This research attempts to explain these gaps using between and within state variation in political and institutional environments. While prior studies have found limited effects of private money (in the form of campaign finance contributions) on legislative outcomes, we find a significant effect of private money on regulatory decisions. A one standard deviation increase in the percentage of contributions in an electoral cycle by entrants to the industry is associated with a fall of around three-tenths of a standard deviation in the regulated local loop price (around $1.36 per month). We also find evidence that legislative ideologies, constituency demographics, state parochial effects and institutional variables all play significant roles in the shaping of important regulatory decisions in the telecommunications industry.
Author: Robert W. Crandall Publisher: Brookings Institution Press ISBN: 0815719701 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 311
Book Description
The rapid pace of technological change is placing the world's telephone companies in a very difficult position. Fiber optics cables, wireless telephones, digital signal compression, and sophisticated new switching equipment are lowering the cost of providing service and opening the gates to new competition. At the same time, these new technologies are providing the telephone companies with a wide array of new market opportunities. Unfortunately, their status as regulated carriers makes it difficult to exploit these new opportunities and to fend off competitive assaults on their traditional telephone business. As long as they are regulated, they can be accused of using their monopoly services to cross-subsidize new competitive ventures. But partial deregulation and open entry would be a catastrophe for them unless they were allowed to revise their rate structure. There is a widespread misconception that the U.S. telecommunications industry has been "deregulated" and that Canadian authorities are following the U.S. lead. In fact, most services remain regulated, even though some markets, such as long-distance services, equipment sales and rentals, and local services, have been opened up. This book reviews the recent changes in the structure of U.S. and Canadian telecommunications industries and the changes in regulatory policy on both sides of the border. The authors analyze the effects of these changes in regulation on telephone rates in both the local and long-distance markets with particular emphasis on the impacts of regulatory reforms and competition on long-distance rates. They use their results to suggest how regulation should be structured to allow competition to replace monopoly on the road to the information superhighway. The authors contend that for decades misguided regulation of the telephone sector in both Canada and the U.S. denied consumers the benefits of competition, distorted local and long-distance telephone rates, and blocked en
Author: Jerry Brito Publisher: Mercatus Center at George Mason University ISBN: 0983607737 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 128
Book Description
Federal regulations affect nearly every area of our lives and interest in them is increasing. However, many people have no idea how regulations are developed or how they have an impact on our lives. Regulation: A Primer by Susan Dudley and Jerry Brito provides an accessible overview of regulatory theory, analysis, and practice. The Primer examines the constitutional underpinnings of federal regulation and discusses who writes and enforces regulation and how they do it. Published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, it also provides insights into the different varieties of regulation and how to analyze whether a regulatory proposal makes citizens better or worse off. Each chapter discusses key aspects of regulation and provides further readings for those interested in exploring these topics in more detail.
Author: Brian Levy Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
In this paper we look, comparatively, at the problem of utilities regulation through the lens of transcation cost economics to analyze the determinants of performance of privatized utilities in different political and social circumstances. We explore how political institutions interact with regulatory processes and economic conditions in exacerbating or ameliorating the economic performance of the sector. We find that performance can be satisfactory with a wide range of regulatory procedures, insofar as three complementary mechanisms restraining arbitrary administrative action are in place: a) substantive restraints on the discretion of the regulator; b) formal or informal constaints on changing the regulatory system; and c) institutions that enforce the above formal constraints. We find that regulatory credibility can be developed in not very propitious environments, that without such commitment long-term investment will not take place, that achieving such commitment may require inflexible regulatory regimes, that in some cases public ownership of utilities is the default mode of organization, and furthermore, that it may be the only feasible alternative.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309452961 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 583
Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Author: Jon Stern Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Oftel has now been the regulatory agency for UK telecommunications for over 15 years. The FCC has regulated US telecoms for 67 years. Within the EU, regulatory agencies for telecoms now exist in all 15 EU member states. Over the last 15 years, the UK has seen an increase in the number of licensed fixed line operators from two (BT and Mercury) to more than one hundred and fifty. Mobile telecoms has grown from a glint in the eye to the point where Vodafone was the largest quoted company on the London Stock Exchange and the 3G license auctions raised GBP 22.5 billion for the UK Exchequer. According to OECD statistics, between 1985 and 1999, the number of fixed lines in the UK rose by over 50% from 21 million to over 31 million with a growth in mobile subscribers from zero to 24 million. Over the same period, telecommunications revenue as a percentage of GDP increased from 2.45 of GDP to 3.5%. By 1999, the penetration rate (fixed and mobile) was 56.5 per 100 inhabitants, compared to 36 per 100 inhabitants in 1985. In addition, OECD Working Papers report estimates that (i) telecom prices in the UK are 40% lower than the OECD average; and (ii) the UK had made more progress by 1998 in aligning tariffs to costs (price rebalancing) than any other OECD country. Oftel has presided over over - and provided - an orderly regulatory framework for all of these changes with a view to making markets work effectively for consumers. That has meant: - Protecting consumers from unreasonably high prices and poor quality; - Providing the framework for very large investments by the licensed companies; and - Ensuring fair competition - a level playing field for all operators, incumbents and new entrants. Ensuring fair competition raises the most difficult questions and has probably been the hardest. Given the decision by the Thatcher Government to privatise BT as a single company, a very large part of Oftel's work has focused on regulating BT and, in particular on pricing access to BT's network. Oftel, like most other telecom regulators, has encouraged the voluntary negotiation of interconnection terms and prices. However, whether it is for trunk networks, mobile inter-fixed interconnection and more recently at the local exchange level, for good economic reasons, BT and its competitors have not been able to reach voluntary agreements without Oftel intervening significantly either in laying down interconnection pricing rules or in setting these key prices. The same is true in the US, where the FCC has had to specify detailed principles for setting interconnection prices, and similarly for other EU states. However much some observers may argue that telecoms can be handled entirely via a competition policy regime and that there is no need for a specialist industry regulator, we have yet to see any established telecom regulatory regime be abolished. Indeed, the increasing importance of the local-loop for accessing consumers if competition is to work - and to deliver to homes the growing array of new services such as films, E-commerce, internet and computing - arguably increases the need for and the complexity of regulation. This is not least because of the need to cover network access issues in broadcasting along with telecoms and the "convergence" agenda. So, it's "Goodbye Oftel. Hello OFCOM". In the same way that developed and developing countries have increasingly been unbundling, liberalising and privatising their telecom industries over the last 15 years, so countries have increasingly decided to assign the control of monetary policy instruments such as interest rates and/or monetary growth rates to an independent central bank rather than leave monetary policy instruments in the hands of the government. The conventional economic argument for an independent central bank is that it reduces (and is perceived to reduce) the average rate of inflation and its variance by taking monetary policy out of the hands of politicians. Proponents of this view argue that this allows not just a lower rate of inflation but also a steadier and possibly higher rate of growth of output, lower unemployment (at least on average) and the avoidance of a "boom-bust economy". The independent central bank, in its operation of monetary policy, has a strong incentive - and is usually given a legal remit - to achieve low inflation. But, this argument is very similar to the claim that independent regulation of telecoms is necessary to facilitate and promote commercialisation, liberalisation and privatisation of telecom industries. Again, for telecoms, like other regulated and privatised utilities, a key issue is to ensure that short-run policy considerations are not allowed to damage the investment climate for the industry. Investment considerations are particularly important in telecoms with its capital intensity and rapid rate of growth of technical progress. In the monetary policy case, the issue is the establishment of effective institutions to ensure a credible macro-economic and monetary policy framework, particularly for investment. In the telecommunications case, it is the establishment of effective institutions to ensure a credible micro-economic framework to support private investment and competition in telecoms. Moreover, the issues of what institutional design characteristics lead to effective operation are very similar in both cases, with independence from short-term political pressures as a common concern. In both cases, the question of introducing an institution separate and independent of government is intimately related to the questions of the role of (a) rules relative to discretion and (b) the degree and nature of the accountability of the institutions. These are still contentious issues both for central banks and for the development of telecom and other utility service regulation.
Author: Roger Walton Ferguson Publisher: Centre for Economic Policy Research ISBN: 1898128979 Category : Economic stabilization Languages : en Pages : 217
Book Description
This new Geneva Report examines the main threats to international financial stability, focusing on the implications of major changes that have occurred in the global financial system in the past two decades.
Author: Rui J.P de Figueiredo
Author: Rui J.P de Figueiredo
Author: Geoff Andrew Edwards
Author: Robert W. Crandall
Author: Jerry Brito
Author: Brian Levy
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Author: Jon Stern
Author: Roger Walton Ferguson
Author: George Joseph Stigler
Author: