Advancing the evidence base for public policies impacting on dietary behaviour,physical activity and sedentary behaviour in Europe: The Policy Evaluation Network promoting a multidisciplinary approach

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of global mortality. As the social and economic costs of NCDs have escalated, action is needed to tackle important causes of many NCD’s: low physical activity levels and unhealthy dietary behaviours. As these behaviours are driven by upstream factors, successful policy interventions are required that encourage healthy dietary behaviours, improve physical activity levels and reduce sedentary behaviours of entire populations. However, to date, no systematic research on the implementation and evaluation of policy interventions related to these health behaviours has been conducted across Europe. Consequently, no information on the merit, gaps, worth or utility of cross-European policy interventions is available, and no guidance or recommendations on how to enhance this knowledge across European countries exists. As part of the Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life” (JPI HDHL), 28 research institutes from seven European countries and New Zealand have combined their expertise to form the Policy Evaluation Network (PEN). PEN’s aim is to advance tools to identify, evaluate, implement and benchmark policies designed to directly or indirectly target dietary behaviours, physical activity, and sedentary behaviour in Europe, as well as to understand how these policies increase or decrease health inequalities. Using well-defined evaluation principles and methods, PEN will examine the content, implementation and impact of policies addressing dietary behaviour, physical activity levels and sedentary behaviour across Europe. It will realise the first steps in a bespoke health policy monitoring and surveillance system for Europe, and refine our knowledge of appropriate research designs and methods for the quantification of policy impact. It will contribute to our understanding of how to achieve successful transnational policy implementation and monitoring of these policies in different cultural, demographic or socioeconomic settings. PEN will consider equity and diversity aspects to ensure that policy actions are inclusive and culturally sensitive. Finally, based on three policy cases, PEN will illustrate how best to evaluate the implementation and impact of such policies in order to yield healthy diets and activity patterns that result in healthier lives for all European citizens.     

Untangling the paradox of Licensed Shared Access: Need for regulatory refocus

This paper looks at the evolution of the Licensed Shared Access (LSA) – a pioneering European scheme for tapping into radio spectrum that remains assigned to incumbent users. Using the theoretical framework of Co-evolutionary Development, we build analytical case study to understand why this crucial innovation did not take hold in the European wireless market, despite a decade of regulatory and standardisation efforts. Drawing on literature analysis and expert knowledge, we identify barriers that contributed to the stalling of LSA deployment and co-evolutionary forces that could help alleviating them. We expose the need for more proactive engagement of European regional policymakers and suggest directions for refocusing future LSA regulatory activities to target an expanded set of frequency bands, as well as broadening their scope to include local non-public networks and industry verticals.     

Intra-operator mobile plan switching: Evidence from linked survey and billing microdata

This paper examines consumers' intra-operator mobile phone plan switching in Ireland. It models the factors associated with switching outcomes, including the direction of change in expenditure and whether those who are observed to switch plans tend to arrive at more or less optimal plans given their usage. A dataset is employed that combines survey responses from mobile consumers with the same consumers' actual usage data in the period 2017–2019; this was collected by Ireland's national regulatory authority. The cost each consumer would have incurred on every plan offered in the market based on their observed usage is estimated. Using models that allow for selection into switching, associations between switching outcomes and demographic and user characteristics are modelled. Controls are included for plan and user attributes, including demographics and proxies for user sophistication and access to alternative communication options. A substantial proportion of intra-operator switchers in the sample increase expenditures when they switch plan. While many switchers move to plans that are more optimal given their usage, a slight majority move to plans that charge a higher price premium over the best available plan (based on observables) than the consumer's previous plan did. Few observable characteristics of consumers or plans seem to be significantly associated with which switches achieve greater optimality, although fixed operator effects are large and significant. These findings add to the weight of evidence which finds that many consumers fail to arrive at the best price even after switching.     

Competitive dynamics in Polish telecommunications, 1990–2000: growth,regulation, and privatization of an infrastructural multi-network

This paper analyzes the relationship between governmental regulatory policies and competitive dynamics amongst private operators and the national monopolist, TP SA, in three network segments of the Polish telecommunications sector. Special attention is paid to the evolution of organizational strategies in a regulatory environment characterized by constant strategic indecision and reorientations of national policy makers. The paper finds that regulatory/competition coevolution has taken diverse forms in the three network subsegments, with asymmetric duopoly operating in the local fixed network, hidden competition at work in the long-distance fixed network, and oligopolistic technology-driven competition characterizing the high-growth cellular network. The conclusion reached is that Polish telecommunications to date has been stuck in a broad stage of pre-competitive market maneuverings by domestic and international capital, in preparation for privatization of the national operator and for full liberalization as part of EU integration.     

On regulations for 5G: Micro licensing for locally operated networks

Future 5G networks aim at providing new high-quality wireless services to meet stringent and case-specific needs of various vertical sectors beyond traditional mobile broadband offerings. 5G is expected to disrupt the mobile communication business ecosystem and open the market to drastically new sharing based network operational models. 5G technical features of network slicing and small cell deployments in higher carrier frequencies will lower the investment barrier for new entrants to deploy local radio access networks and offer vertical specific services in specific areas and allow them lease the remaining required infrastructure on demand from mobile network operators (MNO) or infrastructure vendors. To realize the full vision of 5G to benefit the society and promote competition, innovation and emergence of new services when the 5G end-to-end network spans across different stakeholders administrative domains, the existing regulations governing the mobile communication business ecosystem are being refined. This paper provides a tutorial overview on how 5G innovations impact mobile communications and reviews the regulatory elements relevant to 5G development for locally deployed networks. This paper expands the recent micro licensing model for local spectrum authorization in future 5G systems and provides guidelines for the development of the key micro licensing elements. This local micro licensing model can open the mobile market by allowing different stakeholders to deploy local small cell networks with locally issued spectrum licenses ensuring pre-defined quality guarantees for the vertical sectors’ case specific needs.     

Policy implications of technology for detecting P2P and copyright violations

The effectiveness of many proposed policies regarding both online copyright protection and network neutrality depend on the extent to which it is technically possible to detect peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), the transfer of copyrighted files, or both. There are many detection approaches, some performed primarily by network operators and some by application-layer agents. This paper describes capabilities, limitations, privacy issues, and policy implications of detection technologies and their countermeasures, in part through quantitative analysis of empirical data. Different approaches are better for different purposes. Network operators are well-positioned to estimate how widespread copyright violations are, but application-layer detection from outside entities has important advantages when the purpose is punishment. Detection is also imperfect, so policies should require more transparency regarding how it is done than we see today. It is shown that, although network operators may not detect every transfer, and they typically miss more video than audio, they can identify most individuals who share copyrighted files via P2P after several weeks of monitoring provided that traffic is unencrypted, which is useful for some purposes. However, it is also shown that encryption is already in use, and it effectively prevents network operators from detecting transfers of copyrighted content. Thus, if network operators are held responsible for monitoring illegal file sharing, there is a tension between using detection to identify violators of copyright law for punishment, which may motivate even greater use of encryption, and using detection for other purposes such as creating fair compensation schemes for copyright-holders, warning users that they may be violating copyright law, or allocating network resources. Alternatively, there are forms of detection that are not evaded through encryption, and application-layer agents rather than network operators are primarily responsible for these. These copyright policy issues are intertwined with network neutrality policy in subtle ways. Network neutrality rules do not protect illegal transfers of copyrighted content, but if network operators are responsible for enforcement (as in “graduated response”) then regulators must determine when it is reasonable to terminate or degrade service based on allegations of copyright violation given the limitations of detection technology to prove those allegations. Allegations of copyright violation should be considered invalid unless they are accompanied with information about how detection was performed and an opportunity for rebuttal. Such transparency has been routinely lacking in both laws and industry agreements.     

Impact of roaming regulation on revenues and prices of mobile operators in the EU

We use a difference-in-differences approach to assess the impact of the EU roaming regulation on mobile operators’ average revenues per user (ARPU) and the retail prices of mobile services. Our results suggest that due to the regulation the ARPU of EU mobile operators decreased since 2007 on average by 9.1%. When considering purchasing power parities, the decline of ARPU is estimated on average at 5.8%, but in this case we cannot reject that there was no decrease at all. We also find that the impact of the regulation on ARPU depends on traffic imbalances, which may be related to tourism flows, and has a stronger negative impact on operators from countries with a surplus in tourism traffic. There is however no difference in the impact of the regulation on cross-country and national operators. Moreover, our results suggest that the Roam Like at Home (RLAH) regulation implemented in June 2017 had no impact on the tariffs of national mobile plans.     

Effective competition and ineffective mobile industry regulation in South Africa

The most striking feature of South Africa’s mobile market is the skewed allocation of spectrum and a seemingly endless sequence of failed attempts to hold an auction for it. A shortage of spectrum (or the inefficient assignment of it) is blamed, among other things, for South Africa’s relatively slow LTE 4G speeds. Through historical accident, the country has two mobile data networks in addition to the four licensed mobile operators. The response of operators has been to innovate using roaming and network sharing agreements; as we explore in this paper, these have become the de facto spectrum allocation process.This paper looks at how the de facto industry structure has been moulded by spectrum holdings and sharing arrangements and asks how spectrum management could be improved. We observe that, although the number of mobile operators has effectively been reduced to 3 (a number which would raise concern in some circles), there exist a variety of arrangements between those three and other spectrum and network operators. The smallest of the current three mobile operators is still not able to offer a nationwide mobile service without a roaming agreement but, at the same time, the two larger operators depend critically on spectrum and roaming agreements themselves, mainly with the two physical data network operators that function as wholesale providers.The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) was established as a consequence of a new constitution that was adopted in 1996 and it helped to create new institutional arrangements for the burgeoning mobile industry. The authority has nevertheless continued to be hampered, as we shall demonstrate, by political imperatives. This has been pointed out by other authors over the past twenty years and we add to this body of evidence by considering the spectrum auction planned (again) for 2021.The “2021” auction is in fact an iteration of the auction originally announced in May 2010 and then abandoned (Song, 2011). The same thing happened again in 2016 (Paelo & Robb, 2020). Late in 2020, the regulator again announced an auction, due to take place during 2021 but by the second quarter of the year, two of the four national operators had already obtained a court injunction to stop it. The process is intertwined with a political imperative to establish a public wireless open-access network, which we discuss in detail.We describe how the industry has navigated around policy and regulatory dysfunction and how competitive interaction among the South African operators has managed to prevail. Following Hausman & Taylor’s (2013) lead in their work on the United States, in this paper we provide a commentary on apparently perverse outcomes from significant regulatory, judicial and legislative actions (or, perhaps more accurately, inactions) governing the South African mobile telecommunications industry from the commencement of the current constitutional arrangements in 1996 to the present.     

International aspects of merger policy: A survey

This paper surveys the literature on merger policy in open economies. We first adopt a reduced-form approach to derive general insights on the scope for conflict between national antitrust authorities and on the gains from international merger policy coordination. Taking trade costs as given, we use standard oligopoly models to derive conditions on market structure, under which underenforcement or overenforcement of national merger policies can arise. We then study the interactions between merger policy and trade policy, and find that trade liberalization often leads to stricter national merger policies. We conclude by discussing empirical evidence on conflict between antitrust authorities.     

An institutional analysis of environmental management in the Korean mobile communications industry

Environmental sustainability in the mobile communications industry can affect corporations not only in the sector but also in other industries by providing solutions to cope with environmental issues. However, despite the significance of environmental sustainability in the industry, there has been a lack of academic attention. This study investigated the environmental issues in the mobile communications industry by adopting an integrated and holistic approach to corporate sustainable management. In addition, the environmental management of mobile network operators was analyzed using the framework of institutional theory. To investigate the environmental management of mobile network operators, we carried out a case study on three Korean mobile network operators including SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus. The results demonstrated that economic and environmental issues were mostly found in the mobile communications industry, and the mobile network operators have actively coped with these issues. Their environmental management was relatively active, and regulatory, mimetic and normative mechanisms were working simultaneously. This study provides some meaningful implications for practitioners and policymakers.     

How disruptive is 5G?

The hypothesis is put forward that, after three decades of stability, there is now the prospect of significant change in the vertical and horizontal structure of the mobile market place. On the supply side, significant factors are, first, the availability of a new and very powerful form of mobile connectivity in the shape of 5G, and second, software defined networking, which allows a single network to provide a variety of heterogeneous services or ‘slices’. On the demand side, the digital transformation of the whole economy (and not just the communications sector) creates the need for diverse communications functions operating in a universe with a much wider set of digitally transformed services.Mobile operators will find themselves contesting customer relationship with firms or other organisations providing these services in an integrated fashion, and thus risk replacing their direct link with end users with becoming the wholesale supplier of an expanded but ‘commoditised’ communications product. We may also observe fewer radio access networks; more competitive backhaul; and the (partial) vertical disintegration of mobile network operators. The regulatory changes implied may include heavier regulation of fewer RANs, and the need for market analyses to confront situations in which network operators sell more and more of their services to a variety of heterogeneous content and application providers – some of them exercising substantial levels of market power.     

The impact of spectrum assignment policies on consumer welfare

The radio spectrum that governments license to mobile operators is central to the development of mobile broadband services. However, there is significant variation around how much and when spectrum is assigned as well as its costs. We assess whether policies to assign spectrum had an impact on consumer welfare in 64 countries during the 2010–2017 period. We find evidence that policies that reduce the amount of spectrum available to operators, delay the assignment of spectrum and increase the cost of spectrum all impacted two important consumer outcomes - network coverage and quality. The findings have implications for governments and regulators, particularly those betting on 4G and 5G as enablers of economic growth and sustainable development.     

Investor Confidence as a Determinant of China's Urban Housing Market Dynamics

China's urban housing market dynamics suggest that evolving investor confidence may be a relevant demand shifter. Such investors are continually updating their beliefs about the state of the macroeconomy and the policy uncertainty related to national and local housing policies. We build a 35 Chinese city real estate confidence index that varies over time and across cities. This index predicts subsequent house price appreciation and new housing sales. We document evidence of heterogeneous effects of investor confidence depending on a city's demographics and the city's elasticity of housing supply. Our results based on a new household‐level expectations survey bolster the case that investor expectations are an important determinant of real estate price dynamics.     

Regulation and the promotion of investment in next generation networks—A European dilemma

The paper discusses the dilemmas facing European regulators (the European Commission and the national regulatory authorities) over the promotion of investment in Next Generation Access Networks (NGANs). Whereas the US has adopted a deregulatory approach and parts of Asia takes an approach linked to industrial policy considerations, the EU has largely left the process to operators working subject to a framework of regulation of access. While this may be enough to elicit investment where there is competition among networks, the incentives to invest are weaker where there is only one fixed network, as is the case in most of the territory of the EU. In reaching this view, the paper examines the prospects for competition from both wireless and municipal networks. It recommends that steps be taken fully to mobilise incentives to invest in NGANs where there is competition. Elsewhere, it may be necessary to consider a broader range of policies to create conditions for investment.     

Assessing the impact of food policy research: rice trade policies in Viet Nam

The economic impact of marketing and trade policy research in Viet Nam conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is assessed using a novel benefit–cost framework. It measures the economic value of the time saved in hastening the policy responses of the Government of Vietnam. Extensive interviews with partners and stakeholders in the research clearly indicated that the time saving was a legitimate measure of the influence of IFPRI on decision-making. Linking a spatial equilibrium model with income distribution analysis based on national household surveys, allowed IFPRI to satisfy policymakers that relaxing rice export quotas and internal trade restrictions on rice would not adversely impact on regional disparities and food security, and would have beneficial effects on farm prices and poverty. These were major concerns of policymakers prior to the IFPRI research project. The research on these and other policy options gave a degree of confidence to policymakers that relaxing the controls would be in Viet Nam’s national interest. They made these decisions earlier than would have been the case without the IFPRI research. The policy assessment framework is used to measure the economic impact of the policy changes themselves, and in particular, the contribution of IFPRI’s work with Viet Nam on the policies from 1995 to 1997. The relaxation of rice export quotas and internal restrictions on rice trade made by the Government of Viet Nam in 1995–97 are estimated to have had a present (1995) value to Viet Nam using a 5% discount rate of $222 million by 2000, rising to $966 million by 2020. For an incremental research investment of less than US$1 million, a conservative estimate of the benefit to Viet Nam of the IFPRI contribution to the policy changes effected in Viet Nam from the reduction in the policy implementation lag indicates a present value in 1995 terms of US$45 million. This represents a benefit–cost ratio of 56. A more optimistic assessment is that the present value is US$91 million with a benefit–cost ratio of 114. In addition to the welfare gains to Viet Nam, there were sizeable gains to the rest of the world from IFPRI’s contribution. Inclusion of these benefits increases present value and benefit–cost estimates by 34 to 84%. Around 38% of the contribution of IFPRI is estimated to have accrued to the rest of the world, as Viet Nam is now a major player in world rice trade.     

Quality-adjusted international price comparisons of mobile telecommunications services

Many countries' policymakers have conducted international price comparisons of mobile telecommunications services to prevent service operators from overcharging subscribers. However, those comparisons have become more complicated because of the escalation in service usage and telecommunications expenditures spurred by the proliferation of smartphones and broadband LTE wireless internet service networks. The basket-based methodologies that have been widely used for international price comparisons are also limited—first, because the baskets for comparison may not be representative of actual service usage patterns in some countries; second, because they are difficult to apply to highly differentiated service plans due to the significant increase in wireless internet service usage and widely used plans with unlimited voice call service and SMS/MMS; and third, because they cannot consider the quality of service, such as upload and download speed in various service environments, at all. As an alternative, this paper proposes a hedonic pricing model that accounts for service quality and its variation in potentially disruptive environments, as well as fixed charge for a mobile phone additional to the price of service plans. The model was used to derive quality-adjusted price indices of mobile telecommunications services for twelve cities in ten countries with broadband LTE wireless internet service. The empirical results confirmed that the price index of each city varied significantly across the specifications,—both within the United States and internationally—depending on whether the model was constructed to reflect service quality and its variation on roads, in buildings, and in subways. The price index of each city also varied depending on whether the subsidized price of a mobile phone was considered part of the monthly price of a service plan. These results have important implications for policymakers seeking to understand the ultimate level of mobile telecommunication service prices for their country in a global context.     

我国城乡发展一体化与财政政策思路

城乡发展一体化是中央提出的一项重大战略决策,是解决“三农”问题、破解二元结构．推进我国经济社会长期可持续发展的重要措施。公共财政是政府履行职能和宏观调控的基本手段．在推进城乡发展一体化中担负着重要使命和职责。文章从宏观和战略的高度,深入论述了城乡发展一体化的重大战略意义．系统归纳了新世纪以来国家财政支持城乡一体化的主要政策及其成效．客观揭示了当前中国城乡一体化面临的若干主要矛盾。在此基础上,进一步提出近中期运用财政政策促进城乡一体化的基本思路。主要政策建议：一是政府基础设施投资要向农村倾斜;二是着力完善农业支持政策;三是建立与完善农村剩余劳动力有效流动和转移的新型制度政策框架;四是创新城乡基本公共服务均等化的政策体系。     

Analysing disruptive potential: the case of wireless local area network and mobile communications network companies

In this article, we analyse the prediction that wireless local area network (W-LAN) technologies will be disruptive for incumbent mobile communications network operators. For this purpose, we develop a methodology of guided interviews to assess technologies for their disruptive characteristics based on theory of disruptive technology developed by Christensen (1997) and recent extensions. The application of our comprehensive step-by-step method improves the precision of the disruptive technology concept and its usability for practitioners to make ex ante distinctions between disruptive technologies and other phenomena caused by emerging technologies. Our method predicts that contrary to common assumptions, W-LAN is not likely to represent a disruptive technology for the established mobile communications network firms in terms of Christensen's concept. This research was conducted in close collaboration with Vodafone Pilotentwicklung, an R&D and technology monitoring unit of the Vodafone Group. Vodafone provided part of the empirical data through expert interviews and market reports.     

The next stage of U.S. communications policy: The emerging embedded infosphere

The United States needs to reimagine the basic principles of its telecommunications and information policy to fit an emerging society in which networking and intelligence are embedded into an increasing number of everyday things which constantly monitor and measure our lives. This emerging environment is an always-on, ubiquitous, integrated system comprised of the Internet of Things, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence/Intelligent Systems and the Intercloud, which act together as a single system, referred to here as the “Embedded Infosphere” (EI). This development is driving the latest stage – the third – in the evolution of U.S. communications policy.Each of the components of the EI presents unique challenges, but the greater concern is all of them acting in concert. These developments bring into focus many topics that have been outside the traditional communications policy envelope, and exceed the portfolios of existing agencies and institutions. This article envisions a new “EI policy space,” grounded in established societal values, and built on the experience of the previous stages.There are appropriate policy responses to each of the challenges, but these responses need to be seen in a holistic perspective, as they are all interconnected. Many of the issues such as privacy, security, consumer protection, and data stewardship are common across several elements. The larger goal is to establish a framework for an integrated policy structure which can address unpredictable emergent conditions, while allowing markets to flourish without unduly burdensome regulations, restrictions or uncertainties.This articles suggests a high-level analytical framework of criteria against which proposed EI policies can be measured. While there may be no “perfect” policies, some may be better (or worse) than others. It also offers a political process designed to incorporate the concept of the EI into national policy thinking. This approach should be implemented through a series of steps and should provide flexibility for development. The initial step is a process by which the EI can be acknowledged, its development analyzed, and the national interests institutionalized. The U.S. Senate has already initiated this process with the pending “DIGIT” Act, designed to bring together the core federal stakeholders and open a policy discourse which will be expanded over time to other key stakeholders. This should lead to the development of a national EI strategy.Since the EI is progressively global, the article suggests how both the normative and regulatory dimensions can be approached in the global context. It raises the possibility of a restructured ICANN “Empowered Community” as a possible venue for developing policies and recommendations in this area. It notes that since global unanimity is unlikely, non-governmental regimes will likely develop to address the unresolved policy interstices.     

Internet of things and the economics of 5G-based local industrial networks

Fifth generation (5G) networks raise governance and management challenges that did not exist in 3G and 4G wireless technologies. Advanced wireless functionality enables new applications and services based on smart, physical, network infrastructures, many of them expected to be localized. As a general-purpose technology, 5G can be configured in numerous ways to support innovative applications across many sectors. Smart network applications and services must integrate physical and virtual components in innovative ways. In addition, general capabilities of 5G must be combined with complementary technologies, such as big data analytics and edge cloud services, to create services for specific use cases. Varying throughput and latency requirements of distinct use cases require differentiated technical solutions. Appropriate frequencies must be aligned efficiently with other features within the footprint of particular, local industrial networks. National policy makers, suppliers, and users are responding differently to these governance and management challenges. These approaches balance differently the trade-offs between experimentation, differentiation, and harmonization. Comparative analysis can inform gradual improvements of the governance of 5G-based, local industrial networks.