Using the Hicks formula to evaluate an estimate of the elasticity of derived demand for toll-free numbers

Duffy-Deno & Parsons D-D & P (2012) estimated the coefficient for the price elasticity of demand for toll-free numbers (TFNs) at between −0.04 and −0.05. Here, the Hicks formula for derived demand is used to check the range of likely demand elasticity for TFNs given the special characteristics of this market. This approach suggests that the demand for TFNs is likely not more elastic than estimated by D-D & P. Therefore, the premise is sound for D-D & P's discussion of the public policy implications of highly inelastic demand for TFNs. The use of industry information for all four parameters of the Hicks formula to check a derived demand elasticity is the first of its kind in the published literature.     

Reception-oriented radio rights: Increasing the value of wireless by explicitly defining and delegating radio operating rights

The increasingly intensive coexistence of diverse radio systems and the inability of existing institutions to resolve conflicts in a timely manner require a change in the way operating rights are defined, assigned, and enforced. This paper proposes a regulatory approach that increases delegation to operators and reduces ambiguity by (1) more clearly defining operating rights and harmful interference using the Three P approach of probabilistic reception protections and transmission permissions; (2) facilitating transactions by limiting the number of parties to a negotiation, only altering the rights in a license at renewal, and implementing a registry; and (3) making rights enforcement more efficient by enabling direct enforcement of rights, separating rulemaking from adjudication, and defining remedies up-front.     

Resources and transaction costs: how property rights economics furthers the resource‐based view

Property rights economics furthers the resource‐based view of strategic management in a number of ways. First, resources are conceptualized as being composed of multiple attributes for which property rights may be held. Second, a resource owner's ability to create, appropriate, and sustain value from resources depends on the property rights that he or she holds and on the transaction costs of exchanging, defining, and protecting them. While transaction costs are a major source of value dissipation, reducing such dissipation may create value. Implications for the RBV analysis of sustained competitive advantage are derived. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A theoretical and empirical investigation of property rights sharing in outsourced research,development, and engineering relationships

This article considers the use of property rights to structure ex post bargaining positions in client‐sponsored RD&E. By focusing on the positive externality created by uses of the technology not targeted by the client, the theory produces a novel set of predictions that diverge from standard transaction cost and property rights reasoning; that is, greater contractor property rights are associated with more transaction‐specific investments by the client. Contractor property rights are also predicted to increase as environmental uncertainty increases and as more applications of the technology fall outside the client's intended fields of use. Contract‐level data from 147 RD&E agreements in technology‐intensive settings provide support for these predictions. A secondary examination shows that clients who share property rights with their contractors face reduced opportunism during project execution. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Resource complementarity and value capture in firm acquisitions: The role of intellectual property rights

Extant literature holds that firm acquisitions create value through innovation if the knowledge bases of the acquirer and the target complement each other. Little is known about the value that patents associated with a target's knowledge convey to the acquirer, i.e., their value in securing market exclusion and freedom to operate in R&D. We argue that such property rights hold preemptive power allowing firms to capture the value from combining complementary technologies and to realize gains from trade in strategic factor markets. Our results for a sample of 1,428 acquisitions indicate that—controlling for technological value—acquired preemptive power is an important determinant of the acquisition price, particularly when the acquirer is technology intensive and acquired patents are highly related to the acquirer's knowledge base. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Different paths to universal access: The impact of policy and regulation on broadband diffusion in the developed and developing worlds

The authors examine the broadband digital divide by analyzing the impact of policy and regulation on broadband Internet diffusion. Their multiple regression analysis shows factors that determine broadband diffusion in technologically developed countries do not necessarily have the same impact in less developed countries. They show that in technologically developed countries, there is greater broadband diffusion in countries that make a higher financial investment in information and communication technologies (ICTs), have effective governing practices at the national level, have higher levels of education, and are more urban. In technologically developing nations, a competitive telecommunications sector and higher investment in ICTs lead to greater broadband diffusion, with investment having an even larger impact in the developing world than in the developed world. In addition, stronger democratic political institutions, higher levels of national income and lower levels of income inequality increase diffusion, but the presence of a national telecommunications regulatory authority has a negative impact. These results suggest that the path to widespread availability and use of broadband requires different strategies depending on a nation's level of technological development.     

Global competition and EEC policy in telecommunications: An Italian perspective

Within the framework of increasing US and Japanese competition, an interpretation is given of the future development lines of European telecommunications. Europe is lagging behind in this sector; this is explained in terms of the subdivision of services at the national level and the fragmentation of industrial areas within the respective countries. The minimum basis for recovery should be the establishment of a common European base in the telecommunications sector. A European scenario is proposed with particular attention devoted to the Italian problems in restructuring and development.     

The quest for expansive intellectual property rights and the failure to disclose known relevant prior art

Expansive patent portfolios may be used by firms to fence off technological space for commercialization, impede the commercialization efforts of competitors, and enhance bargaining power in cross‐licensing negotiations. Low quality patents with claims that overlap those of other patents contribute to these portfolios and patent strategies. By failing to disclose known relevant prior art during the patenting process, inventors and their firms may be granted low quality patents with intellectual property claims which would not otherwise have been granted. We find that the failure of inventors to disclose known relevant prior art increases as they gain experience with the patenting process. Such failure is also greater among inventors employed by relatively small, poorly performing firms that rely on outsourced legal counsel during the application process. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Voices from Northern Canada: Integrating stakeholder expectations in telecommunications policy for rural,remote and Northern regions

In Canada, residents of rural, remote and Northern communities generally pay more for slower, less reliable, and more expensive telecommunications services compared to southern and urban residents. This situation is particularly concentrated in small-population, rural Indigenous communities located in the Northern territories. Over the last several decades, many public policy initiatives have attempted to develop telecommunications services, including high-speed broadband, in these underserved areas. However, Northern input into these initiatives and their outcomes has been limited — despite increasing evidence of the benefits of place-based planning, monitoring and evaluation processes. In this context we examine a recent public consultation about telecommunication services in these regions, focusing on expectations submitted by individual Northerners and by intermediary organizations representing their interests. Our analysis reveals distinct but complementary functions expressed by these different kinds of intervenors, which we suggest policymakers could take into consideration when planning consultations involving rural and remote regions.     

Politics,policy and fixed-line telecommunications provision: Insights from Australia

Over the past 40 years, telecommunications policy worldwide has been dominated by the privatisation of former government-owned firms, the pursuit of increasing competition as well as the delegation of day-to-day operations of industry decision-making and oversight from core governments to autonomous regulators sitting at arms-length from political decision-making. One of the most (apparently) dramatic reversals of this trend has occurred in Australia where the federal government has set up a state-owned company (NBN Co) to fully replace and upgrade the fixed-line infrastructure for voice and broadband communications for the entire country. Some argued that the NBN heralded a reversal of a “failed, neoliberal” deregulation and pro-competition policy agenda in Australia, and a return to “social democratic” values. The NBN has attracted interest as a possible model for other governments looking to fund broadband infrastructure.The NBN Co's network is nearing completion. It has proved disappointing in many ways, with costs escalations, missed deadlines and a downscaling of the original full-fibre footprint to a mixed technology model (MTM). It has also proved politically divisive, with some claiming the MTM changes represent the reassertion of a neoliberal political agenda. In this paper, we trace the evolution of the fixed-line telecommunications industry in Australia from the 1980s to the present along the dimensions of privatisation, deregulation and competition in voice, broadband and policy settings. We find that contrary to popular political rhetoric, the Australian industry reforms have been characterised by only a partial and inconsistent progression towards the international policy objectives. In particular, ongoing government ownership of the incumbent created perverse incentives for both regulatory and industry actors and ensured political involvement in import network investment and operations decisions which in other jurisdictions are delegated to private-sector owners and regulators at arms-length from political influence. We contend that the NBN was not a social democratic response to failed neoliberal policies, nor was the MTM a neoliberal reassertion. Rather, the politicisation of the NBN is a function of the inability to decentralise ownership and control of the industry away from the government. These issues will continue to dominate the Australian debate, as the statutory context requires the privatisation of the NBN within five years of its projected 2021 completion. Extreme caution is warranted for jurisdictions looking to the NBN model for guidance.     

Applying “Merger Guidelines” market definition to (de)regulatory policy: Pros and cons

Since initially presented in the 1982 Department of Justice Horizontal Merger Guidelines, market definition has been adopted nearly worldwide as a framework to see if a merger would substantially lessen competition. This framework is useful for addressing the similarly counterfactual question of whether forbearance from regulation would lead to an increase in prices. In this context, however, the usefulness of a merger-based market definition is limited. Because the alternative to forbearance is regulation, and since some regulated rates may be below competitive levels, finding that deregulation would lead to market power as defined for mergers need not justify continued regulation. Forbearance in telecommunications highlights market definition questions regarding gross vs. marginal substitutes, dynamic efficiencies, and service bundling. It also reveals ambiguities in the meaning of “geographic market.” Market definition also has limited applicability if regulation exists not to prevent high prices but the abuse of dominance through predatory pricing.     

Mergers: Significance for structure,performance and public policy session comment

Chief, Center for Economic Studies, Bureau of the Census.     

Implementing policy on next-generation broadband networks and implications for equity of access to high speed broadband: A case study of Australia's NBN

Next generation telecommunications infrastructure is expanding and supporting rapid growth of broadband technologies and a digital economy. In this context, digital information and communications technologies (ICTs) are of increasing importance as a means for people to gain access to health or social services, employment opportunities, information and social networks. In this article we draw on our recent case study research to examine the policy (and politics) shaping implementation of Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) and its likely effects on equity of access to high speed broadband (HSB) services. We monitored NBN policy and implementation from 2015 to 2018 through policy documents, reports, and media. To assess likely effects of NBN policy on implementation and subsequently on equity of access to HSB we: a) applied a framework defining four elements of equity of access; and b) analysed stakeholder views drawn from media articles and 22 interviews with experts on NBN policy including politicians, government staff, and industry representatives. We found that equity considerations competed with political and commercial imperatives during the rollout of the NBN. This resulted in positive and negative consequences for equity of access to HSB, with a change in policy and implementation in 2013 bringing greater risks to equity of access. The case study provides a framework for considering equity in the implementation of next generation telecommunications infrastructure and highlights the importance of considering equity in the evaluation of telecommunications infrastructure.     

Developing the Internet: entrepreneurship and public policy in Ireland,Singapore, Argentina,and Spain

The Internet has not developed uniformly throughout the world. Data on 141 countries indicate that, after controlling for per capita income and installed telephone lines, cross-national differences in the numbers of Internet users and hosts have to do with favorable conditions for entrepreneurship and investment. We find little evidence that competition and privatization of telecommunications services matters. After examining international patterns of development for the world as a whole, differences between two matched pairs of countries are systematically compared: Ireland and Singapore, and Argentina and Spain. Patterns of entrepreneurship and public policy in each country are shown to have differed systematically, with distinctive consequences for the development of the Internet.     

制造业内部控制对真实盈余管理的影响研究——兼不同产权性质下的比较

以2013年沪深A股1 315家制造业公司为研究对象,利用其2011-2013年的数据,采用迪博内部控制指数量化衡量内部控制质量,检验内部控制对真实盈余管理的影响。研究发现,高质量的内部控制能够降低上市公司的销售性操控、生产成本操控和酌量性费用操控水平,从而降低上市公司的真实盈余管理程度。进一步研究发现,无论是国有控股公司还是非国有控股公司,内部控制都能有效抑制真实盈余管理,且在国有控股公司中其抑制作用更强。     

Food product composition,consumer health,and public policy: Introduction and overview of special section

As efforts to improve diets in high income countries intensify, attention has turned to how policies may influence diet composition. The case studies in this special issue contribute to our understanding of how two main types of policies have influenced food product composition and dietary outcomes: (1) policies affecting food manufacturers’ input costs and (2) information policy affecting competition. Research on the first type of policy is relatively new, but suggests that US commodity policies would not be good policy instruments to influence diets, except through the long run impacts of agricultural research. Research on the impacts of information policy continues to demonstrate that it can spur food industry competition to introduce healthier products, but may not result in healthier diets. International comparisons show where the US experience may have relevance for other high income countries.     

The reluctant regulator: The Rural Utilities Service and American broadband policy

Drawing on the increasing body of literature on policy stakeholders and the ever-growing acknowledgement that communication policy is crafted by more than just parliamentarians and formal communication regulators this paper examines the role that another set of regulators plays in communication policy: agriculture regulators. Based on a study of the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), this paper explores alternative agents of communication policy. More specifically, through document analysis we examine the way in which the Rural Utilities Service has shaped rural broadband policy in the United States over the last three decades. The implications for this research are wide, as it brings another policy actor into the policy making melee, and pushes communication policy scholars to consider the role that non-traditional communication regulators play in the communication policy making process.     

Economic growth,telecommunications development and productivity growth of the telecommunications sector: Evidence around the world

This paper studies the relationships between economic growth, telecommunications development and productivity growth of the telecommunications sector in different countries and regions of the world. In particular, this study assesses the impact of mobile telecommunications on economic growth and telecommunications productivity. The results indicate that there is a bidirectional relationship between real gross domestic product (GDP) and telecommunications development (as measured by teledensity) for European and high-income countries. However, when the impact of mobile telecommunications development on economic growth is measured separately, the bi-directional relationship is no longer restricted to European and high-income countries. This study also finds that countries in the upper-middle income group have achieved a higher average total factor productivity (TFP) growth than other countries. Countries with competition and privatization in telecommunications have achieved a higher TFP growth than those without competition and privatization. The diffusion of mobile telecommunications services is found to be a significant factor that has improved the TFP growth of the telecommunications sector in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).     

Business group affiliation and firm performance in a transition economy: A focus on ownership voids

In a transition economy, how does business group affiliation make a difference in firm performance? Under the broad label of institutional voids, what specific voids can business groups fill? This paper addresses these questions by drawing on insights from property rights theory and an institutional perspective. We argue that ownership voids, as a subset of institutional voids, occur due to the lack of unambiguously specified ownership of state assets in transition economies, and that business groups emerge to serve as the direct owners of state-owned enterprises to replace such voids. Based on a sample of 1,119 publicly-listed Chinese companies, we find that the interaction of business group affiliation and state ownership has a significant and positive effect on firm performance. Our findings point to business group’s substitution role in filling ownership voids in China’s transition economy.