Diffusion of mobile telephony in India: An empirical study

Diffusion of new technology is an important driver of economic growth. In this paper, diffusion of mobile telephony in India is studied. There is a vast diffusion potential in this country which needs to be exploited efficiently and in a rational way. This paper investigates the social, technological, economical and political (STEP) factors that have influenced the diffusion process of mobile telephony especially the diffusion speed. The epidemic model, which is widely employed in the diffusion studies of mobile telephony, is used for the study. The data is fitted into logistic, gompertz, and bass models by nonlinear least squares and it is found that gompertz model best describes the diffusion process of mobile telephony in India. The study reveals that competition and government intervention played a significant role in accelerating the diffusion speed of mobile telephony by making the technology affordable. It is found that mobile telephony is a substitute for fixed line telephony in India. The findings will be useful in taking managerial decisions with respect to factors in forecasting and controlling the diffusion process of emerging technologies.     

Regional and gender differentials in the persistence of unemployment in Europe

The persistence of unemployment increased during the recent great recession in many European countries, although with diversified impacts. We therefore analyse such impacts in four European countries – Italy, Spain, France and the UK – which represent different institutional frameworks and may reflect the so-called continental European and Anglo-Saxon frameworks. We analyse the determinants of unemployment persistence using individual-level data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) panel for the period 2007–2013. These data enable us to take into account initial conditions and state dependence in addition to individual and household characteristics. We focus on gender and regional effects, which have a strong impact on the persistence in the state of unemployment. We find that gender gap is significant in Italy and the UK, implying that male workers show a higher probability of remaining unemployed. In Italy, such a pattern is due to the worsening of male workers’ conditions during the crisis, whereas in the UK, male workers show higher unemployment rates than women. Regional effects are significant in all countries analysed and underline a relevant structural factor that should be addressed on policy grounds in Europe. Such effects are greater in Spain and Italy.     

Conjoint analysis of demand for IP telephony: the case of Japan

With the recent diffusion of broadband (BB) services, Internet protocol (IP) telephony is expected to spread significantly in Japan. This article investigates the demand for IP telephony by using conjoint analysis. Projecting IP telephony demand also contributes to Japanese info-communication policy discussions. Two points are made. First, IP telephony is still currently considered an optional supplement or an add-on service option of high-speed BB Internet access services in Japan rather than a close substitute of existing plain old telephone service (POTS). At this point, we find little evidence that many households will promptly forsake their fixed line service for IP telephony. Second, we conclude that the key condition for the proliferation of IP telephony is the complete guarantee of quality of service (QoS), including voice quality, number portability, fax usage and emergency access, comparable to or exceeding that of existing POTS.     

Fixed-to-mobile call substitution and telephony market definition in Korea

An appropriate market definition is critical in most antitrust cases. In practice, antitrust authorities define economic markets in a deterministic manner with little concern about the risk involved in defining markets incorrectly. In contrast, this article proposes a probabilistic market definition method by which antitrust authorities can establish a statistical confidence level for their intended market-definition judgments. As an application, we examine the likelihood that the fixed-line and mobile telephony services in Korea can compete in the same economic market. Combining critical loss analysis with a hierarchical Bayes model for stated preference data, we find some evidence for the separation of the fixed-line and mobile telephony markets in present-day Korea. After discussing certain possible regulation biases for market definition, we predict that the two markets will converge in the near future as the mobile price premium continues to decrease.     

ASSESSING THE RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN THE US AND UK: A STOCHASTIC DISTANCE FUNCTION APPROACH

University technology transfer offices (henceforth, TTOs) play a critical role in the diffusion of innovation and the development of new technology infrastructure. Studies of the relative efficiency of TTOs have been based on licensing output measures and data from a single country. In contrast, we present the first cross-country comparison of the relative performance of TTOs, based on stochastic multiple output distance functions. The additional dimension of output considered is the university's propensity to generate start-up companies, based on technologies developed at these institutions. We find that US universities are more efficient than UK universities and that the production process is characterized by either decreasing or constant returns to scale. Universities with a medical school and an incubator are closer to the frontier.     

The diffusion of Internet telephony among consumers and firms: Current issues and future prospects

This paper analyses the current demand and market potential for Internet telephony—the transmission of voice over the public Internet or over a private Intranet—a technology that has attracted considerable attention as an appealing alternative to traditional telephony but that is likely to develop as a component within an integrated system of video, data and voice applications. The paper investigates technical, economic and social factors supporting and hindering the adoption of Internet telephony. In doing so, it relies upon the idea that the diffusion of Internet telephony is determined both by the attributes of the technological applications as perceived by the potential adopters, and by the characteristics of different users. According to this view, the research points out that relevant uncertainties reside on the demand side, particularly among residential users, and that in the future, businesses are more likely to adopt these applications than consumers. The assumptions concerning the future diffusion of Internet telephony are supported by the results of a survey carried out among a sample of Internet telephony service providers in Europe and North America.     

Calling party pays or receiving party pays? The diffusion of mobile telephony with endogenous regulation

This paper analyzes the impact on mobile telephony diffusion patterns of the two predominant payment regimes, calling party pays (CPP) and receiving party pays (RPP), for mobile termination services. By applying instrumental variable techniques to panel data we account for a possible interdependency of penetration rates and regulatory interventions. For this purpose we use data on political and institutional factors to instrument endogenous regulatory decisions. We conclude from our empirical analysis that there is no significant impact of either RPP or CPP on penetration rates. Therefore an application of RPP in order to obviate regulation of termination fees would be feasible.     

Political institutions and telecommunications

It has traditionally been argued that the development of telecommunications infrastructure is dependent on the quality of countries' political institutions. We estimate the effect of political institutions on the diffusion of three telecommunications services and find it to be much smaller in cellular telephony than in the others. By evaluating the importance of institutions for technologies rather than for industries, we reveal important growth opportunities for developing countries and discuss venues for alleviating differences between countries in international telecommunications development.     

The international wealth channel: a global error-correcting analysis

This article investigates empirically whether shocks to asset prices transmit into the trade balance through consumption and investment for a group of five of the world??s most industrialized countries. We refer to this transmission channel as the international wealth channel and estimate a GVAR model including 29 countries with quarterly data over the period 1981Q1?C2006Q4. Generalized impulse response functions show that after a negative stock price shock US and UK consumption decreases, followed by an improving trade balance. This pattern is also visible for France, but not for Germany and Japan. Stock price decreases are only associated with decreasing investment and an improving trade balance in the UK. For housing, we do find that a negative shock to UK housing prices decreases domestic investment and improves the trade balance. However, this pattern is not visible in the other countries. Finally, a domestic negative real exchange rate shock only has a significantly positive impact on the US trade balance.     

Is fixed-mobile substitution strong enough to de-regulate fixed voice telephony? Evidence from the Austrian markets

In this paper, we estimate own-price elasticities for fixed network voice telephony access and national calls services for private users as well as cross-price elasticities to mobile services using time series data from 2002 to 2007 from the Austrian markets. Using instrumental variable estimates and considering cointegration, we find that access is inelastic while calls are elastic. We conclude that the retail market for national calls of private users can probably be deregulated due to sufficient competitive pressure from mobile. Access-substitution on the other hand does not seem to be strong enough to justify de-regulation.     

Distance and International Banking

This paper asks how important distance is as a determinant of international banking and whether distance has become less important over time. If technological progress has lowered information costs and if information costs increase in distance, the importance of distance should have declined. I use data on assets and liabilities of commercial banks from five countries (France, Germany, Italy, UK, and US) in 50 host countries for the years 1983–99 to test this hypothesis. Generally, I find that banks hold significantly lower assets in distant markets and that the importance of distance for the foreign asset holdings of banks has not changed.     

Antidumping under International Fragmentation: Evidence from China

Applying a negative binomial regression model, this paper investigates how Chinese exports have reshaped the global value chain and the use of antidumping. We use trade in value‐added statistics to distinguish between Chinese exports of intermediate and final products to its main trading partners, including the USA, Mexico, South Korea, the UK, Germany, France and Italy, among others, and find that other countries welcome China as an intermediate producer, although not necessarily as a final good producer. We also find that a higher level of fragmentation reduces the likelihood of antidumping initiation and measures.     

On the real effects of inflation in open economies: theory and empirics

Based on the quarterly data from four open economies (the US, the UK, Canada, and Italy) and estimated correlations and impulse responses within the traditional vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis, we find that inflation, both in the short and long term, negatively affects consumption and investment, and has a positive influence on the current account. We propose an infinite-horizon optimizing model of an open economy with a fixed rate of time preference that explains these empirics. In this type of economy, households consume both durable and non-durable goods, firms operate under costly investment, and all the transactions involving consumption and investment are subject to cash-in-advance (CIA) constraints. Employing the new ‘sign restriction’ identification procedure due to Uhlig (J Mone’t Econ 52(2)381–419, 2005), we corroborate the empirical validity of the proposed model. In order to verify the robustness of our results, we consider another shock, namely, productivity shock in our empirical analysis and find that while productivity shock dominates in the case of the US, inflationary shock has a dominating effect in the case of the UK, Canada, and Italy.     

Postponing retirement: the political effect of aging

Conventional economic wisdom suggests that because of the aging process, social security systems will have to be retrenched. In particular, retirement age will have to be largely increased. Yet, is this policy measure feasible in OECD countries? Since the answer belongs mainly to the realm of politics, I evaluate the political feasibility of postponing retirement under aging in France, Italy, the UK, and the US. Simulations for the year 2050 steady state demographic, economic and political scenario suggest that retirement age will be postponed in all countries, while the social security contribution rate will rise in all countries, but Italy. The political support for increasing the retirement age stems mainly from the negative income effect induced by aging, which reduces the profitability of the existing social security system, and thus the individuals' net social security wealth.     

New evidence on the firm-university linkages in Europe. The role of meritocratic management practices

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the determinants of university-industry links in five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK), using internationally comparable firm-level data for the period 2007–2009. Besides the usual firm-specific variables, it examines the role of meritocratic management practices in firms’ decisions to collaborate in R&D. Firm innovative efforts, the export status and the R&D government support are positively related to business-university links in almost all countries, human capital and firms’ size in two out of five countries under scrutiny, while belonging to science-based sectors does not seem to play a significant role in all countries but Italy. Importantly, we find that meritocratic managerial practices positively affect the firm-university nexus in Germany, France and the UK, while meritocracy does not appear to enhance businesses’ R&D collaboration in Italy and in Spain.     

Income Inequality and Technology Diffusion: Evidence from Developing Countries*

We study the effect of within‐country income inequality on the diffusion of mobile phones using data on market penetration in a sample of developing countries from 1985 to 1998. Mobile phones are an example of international technology, originating in industrialized countries and diffusing worldwide. We find that income inequality, as measured by the income share of the highest earning deciles, has a positive effect on the early diffusion of mobile phones and that the estimated effect becomes greater when a measure of agricultural endowments is used as an instrument. The instrumental variable results are robust to weak instruments. Our findings suggest that the diffusion of new technologies originating from industrialized countries may generate yet another channel that links inequality and development.     

The effects of education and aging in an OLG model: long-run growth in France,Germany and Italy

The purpose of the paper is to provide a long-run analysis up to 2050 of the interplay between financial integration, diverging labor productivity, and the aging process in the larger European countries. We use the Prometeia overlapping generation model for Italy, Germany, and France which are modeled as open economies in capital markets. Our projections provide a core-periphery structure in which Germany, the most abundant human capital country, shows the highest but a decreasing growth rate due to pronounced aging, and finances capital accumulation processes in France and Italy. We find that financial trends are reversed in the late 2010s when Italy begins to over-save as the gap in human capital endowment, and then in productivity, becomes larger compared to the other two countries. This leads to a reduction in physical capital accumulation and innovation processes in Italy. We employ fiscal experiments to correct the long-run divergent behavior of countries in order to get a more homogeneous growth rate path among countries. We also measure the impact of taxation on net-wealth in Italy, and evaluate the internal and spillover effects.     

Beyond national and technological styles of innovation diffusion: a dynamic perspective on cases from the energy and transport sectors

This article argues that styles of innovation diffusion dynamics depend on both national and niche-specific factors and that their respective influence changes during the innovation diffusion process. Based on a review of approaches, dealing on the one hand with differences in national innovation and technology systems and on the other with process of niche formation and development, a theoretical synthesis and pattern of analysis is suggested for interpreting and comparing empirical findings from two different technology examples. The analysis of combined heat and power (CHP) in Germany, UK and the Netherlands, and of electric vehicles in Germany, Sweden and France allows us to identify different styles of innovation diffusion dynamics. These styles are determined by the relative importance of national and niche-specific factors in different phases of the process of technological change. Support in lent to the hypothesis that a style which combines impulses for innovation at both structural and niche is particularly conducive to radical change.     

Beyond national and technological styles of innovation diffusion: a dynamic perspective on cases from the energy and transport sectors

This article argues that styles of innovation diffusion dynamics depend on both national and niche-specific factors and that their respective influence changes during the innovation diffusion process. Based on a review of approaches, dealing on the one hand with differences in national innovation and technology systems and on the other with process of niche formation and development, a theoretical synthesis and pattern of analysis is suggested for interpreting and comparing empirical findings from two different technology examples. The analysis of combined heat and power (CHP) in Germany, UK and the Netherlands, and of electric vehicles in Germany, Sweden and France allows us to identify different styles of innovation diffusion dynamics. These styles are determined by the relative importance of national and niche-specific factors in different phases of the process of technological change. Support in lent to the hypothesis that a style which combines impulses for innovation at both structural and niche is particularly conducive to radical change.