100,578 research outputs found
Il mercato delle telecomunicazioni. Dal monopolio alla liberalizzazione negli Stati Uniti e nell'UE
No full textIn questo libro abbiamo voluto analizzare gli effetti in-dotti dai processi di regolamentazione e di liberalizzazione in alcuni dei principali paesi industrializzati: gli Stati Uniti, la Gran Bretagna e l'Unione Europea, con specifica attenzione al caso italiano. Il contenuto del volume ha prevalente carat-tere economico-istituzionale, in quanto analizza lo status del-la regolazione, senza approfondire le tematiche teoriche, ma utilizzando queste ultime per interpretare i fatti. Per un ap¬pro¬fon¬dimento teorico rinviamo alla nostra precedente mo-nografia [Cambini, Ravazzi e Valletti 2000]. La novità della presente ricerca è duplice: da un lato è un'ag¬¬gior¬na¬ta esposizione dell'evoluzione del settore delle telecomunicazioni, a partire dalla caduta dei monopoli; dall'altro è un tentativo di leggere gli eventi alla luce della teoria economica. L'obiettivo è quello di affrontare proble-mi, a volte ostici, in modo agevole e di facile lettura; a tal fine, sono descritte le caratteristiche dei diversi mercati - ciascuno caratterizzato da una sua storia e da una specifica struttura - e sono valutate criticamente le politiche di rego-lazione adottate nei vari paesi. Il volume si può idealmente suddividere in due parti. La prima è incentrata sull'evoluzione storica del mercato, evi-denziando soprattutto l'impatto economico delle politiche di regolazione. La seconda parte affronta invece, in maniera più approfondita e trasversale per i diversi paesi, i principali temi inerenti alla regolamentazione delle telecomunicazioni: il controllo delle tariffe finali; il servizio universale e il suo finanziamento; l'inter¬con¬nes¬sio¬ne; l'unbundling e le tecnologie a larga banda. In ciascun capitolo tematico è premessa una sintetica trattazione degli aspetti teorici più rilevanti, al fine di meglio comprendere le questioni affrontate ed il loro con-testo istituzionale. Gli argomenti sono essenzialmente ine-renti al settore della telefonia fissa, ma - data la sua impor-tanza - un capitolo finale è dedicato ai problemi regolatori che caratterizzano il settore della telefonia mobil
The practice of access pricing : telecommunications in the United Kingdom
No full textTelecommunications was the first network utility to be privatized in the United Kingdom. Drawing on 15 years'experience and discussion in the field, the author shows the economic principles of regulation in general and access pricing in particular that have been implemented. British Telecommunications (BT), formed as a public enterprise in 1980-81, was privatized in 1984. Since then the approaches to regulation have changed in three broad periods: the duoply, the transition to competition, and the recently introduced normalization phase. Dealing with each period, the author focuses on how the actual implementation of access charges are determined, at the same time providing background needed on regulatory intervention generally. Rather than follow the model of competition for a common infrastructure, Oftel [the Office of Telecommunications, the regulatory agency]has encouraged competition between alternative networks, which benefits customers but involves duplication of fixed costs. As a result of Oftel's approach, customers have seen their bills reduced 50 percent in real terms since privatization. It is difficult to know how much to attribute this remarkable result to technological progress (BT halved its workforce in the same period), to regulatory intervention (Oftel set string caps until 1997), or to competition (there are hundreds of players in the market). The author contends more weight should probably be given to the first two. Entrants have not achieved big market shares, if one considers the asymmetric regulation that has been in place for more than a decade. Indirectly, at least, competition benefited consumers by applying discipline to BT's behavior. Oftel's approach was interventionist until 1997, when it began trying to normalize the industry, as authority overseeing competition. The odds on complete deregulation are slight, and some controls on industry will remain. In the longer term, Oftel should especially monitor anticompetitive practices and collusive behavior among the bigger players (BT, CWC, and cellulator operators), The United Kingdom's interconnection experience demonstrates the complexity of the problem and its relationship to other topics, such as tariff rebalancing, access deficit, and universal service. Although a bit ad hoc, the recent incentive regulation, with a network cap based on proper accounting procedures and engineering models, may represent the best practice available today in the telecommunications industry, says the author.Public Sector Economics&Finance,Decentralization,Knowledge Economy,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Knowledge Economy,Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies
Investments and Network Competition
No full textThis paper analyzes the impact of two-way access charges on the incentives to invest in networks with different levels of quality. When quality has an impact on all calls initiated by customers (destined both on-net and off-net), we obtain a result of "tacit collusion" even in a symmetric model with two-part pricing. Firms tend to under-invest in quality, and this is exacerbated if they can negotiate reciprocal termination charges above cost. When the quality of off-net calls depends on the interaction between the quality of the two networks, no network has an incentive to jump ahead of its rival by investing more
Strategic Price Discrimination in Compulsory Insurance Markets
No full textThis paper considers price discrimination when competing firms do not observe a customer’s type but only some other variable correlated to it. This is a typical situation in many insurance markets—such as motor insurance—where it is also often the case that insurance is compulsory. We characterise the equilibria and their welfare properties under various price regimes. We show that discrimination based on immutable characteristics such as gender is a dominant strategy, either when firms offer policies at a fixed price or when they charge according to some consumption variable that is correlated to costs. In the latter case, gender discrimination can be an outcome of strategic interaction alone in situations where it would not be adopted by a monopolist. Strategic price discrimination may also increase cross subsidies between types, contrary to expectations. Copyright The Geneva Association 2005price discrimination, insurance classification, equity, variable insurance charges,
Firm size distribution: Testing the independent submarkets model in the Italian motor insurance industry
No full textThis paper tests the presence of multiple independent submarkets in the Italian motor insurance industry. We find that independence effects are sufficient to induce a minimum degree of inequality in the size distribution of firms once submarkets are aggregated. These results are consistent with the predictions of Sutton [Sutton, J., 1998. Technology and market structure. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.]. At the submarket level, some degree of inequality can be explained by a model of equilibrium price dispersion based on costly consumer search. Our findings show that Sutton's limiting approach and one based on a game theoretical analysis of an industry are good complements when the industry is made of several independent submarket
Access Charge and Quality Choice in Competing Networks
No full textWe study the impact of reciprocal access charges on the incentives to invest in networks of higher quality. We show how private and social preferences always diverge once investments are endogenized. Private negotiations never lead to charges being set at their marginal cost. Whether or not marginal cost charges have good dynamic properties depends on the way investments in quality impact on traffic generated on the networks
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