Capacity-based versus time-based access charges in telecommunications

The Spanish telecommunications regulator recently introduced a capacity-based access system. Under this regulation, entrants pay a flat charge for the interconnection circuits leased to the incumbent operator and are able to freely use these circuits to provide telecommunications services. This paper determines the optimal capacity-based access charge in the presence of time varying demand and capacity constraints and compares this regulation with the traditional time of use access system. The analysis shows that either type of regulation allows the incumbent to recover its fixed costs and can promote the same pattern of entry. Finally, the optimal capacity-based access charge when the entrant has market power is derived.      

欧盟促进科学资源开放共享的政策措施

欧盟极为重视科学资源的开放共享,积极制定科学信息开放获取政策,采取了一系列行动措施,把推动科学信息的快速传播作为建设欧洲研究区、加速创新的关键手段之一。2007年,欧盟出台了"数字化时代科学信息的开放、传播和保存"建议,积极推动科学信息的开放、扩散和保存,提高欧洲知识竞争力'让科研成果尽快惠及欧盟经济和社会。2012年,欧盟再次提出"更好地获取科学信息,促进公共研发投入产生更好的效益"建议,进一步采取措施,加大力度推动公共资金资助的科研成果广泛传播和有效利用。通过对欧盟科学资源开放共享政策和措施进行分析研究,希望为我国相关机构和科技人员借鉴欧盟科学资源开放共享的理念和经验、探索适合我国国情的科技信息系统提供参考。     

Open access,common property and scarcity rent in fisheries

Open access resources are frequently not managed efficiently, resulting in falling stock levels and a declining income for fishermen. In the late 1970's, the policy response to this problem was the implementation of 200-mile fishing zones, which enabled the European Union to formulate and implement the Common Fisheries Policy, aimed at (among other things) conservation and distribution of available stocks. In Germany, this shift from an open access regime towards a common property regime had favourable outcomes. The trend of falling prices was reversed. The conclusion was that intertemporal efficiency had increased as a result of (inter)governmental policy. Apparently, a wedge was formed between price and marginal harvesting costs, implying that scarcity rent had returned as a component of prices.     

开放条件下粮食政策实施的福利经济分析

本文研究目的在于建立一个结合关税配额制度、粮食补贴政策和生态退耕政策的粮食部门均衡模型GSEM,来模拟比较不同政策调整对粮食部门社会福利影响,从而对存在明显目标冲突的粮食政策进行调整优化.研究结论显示,关税配额制度和生态退耕政策会减少粮食部门社会福利,粮食补贴政策可以提高粮食部门福利,能够弥补市场开放对生产者福利损失,其中直接补贴政策中的面积补贴方式最有效率.     

开放存取期刊质量评价方法与相关问题思考

近年来开放存取出版模式因其信息传播的即时性与学术资源的开放性得到了业界广泛关注,其质量评价也成为本领域研究热点。在此背景下,对开放存取期刊质量的同行审议评价法、引文分析评价法和网络计量评价法的利弊作了阐述,提出加强和改进评价工作的对策。     

The network of networks: Localized technological change in telecommunications and productivity growth

Radical innovations in the usage of telecommunication services have drastically changed the role of telecommunications in the economy. Today the usage of telecommunications services is associated with the opportunity to extract significant quasi-rents. An empirical analysis of the Italian case in the mid-eighties confirms the significant difference between telecommunications cost share and marginal productivity levels. The opportunity to reap transient quasi-rents has in turn pushed users to innovate so as to become major players in the arena of technological change in telecommunications and information technologies. In this context the notion of network of networks, implemented in the European Union, seems most appropriate to push the dynamic efficiency of the system and accommodate both centrifugal and centripetal innovations, yet also to retain network interoperability and interconnectivity.     

X-Factor updating and total factor productivity growth: the case of peruvian telecommunications, 1996–2003

This paper measures TFP growth of Telefonica del Peru, and based on this growth rate computes a telecommunications X-factor or offset. More broadly the paper analyses the problem of updating an X-factor under existing price cap regulation. A revised offset must account for the possible restructuring of service offerings resulting from improved efficiencies in response to price cap incentives. Our updating framework focuses on efficiency criteria, and based on economic principles emphasizes the continuity between prior and continuing standards. In the case of Peru, based on annual average TFP growth of 1.66%, the X-factor is computed to be 4.06% per year. An erratum to this article can be found at     

R&D spillovers, information technology and telecommunications, and productivity in ASIA and the OECD

This paper examines the role research and development (R&D) plays in technology progress for a sample of OECD and Asian economies from 1980 to 1995. An empirical model is estimated which relates total factor productivity to domestic and foreign R&D activity, trade, and information technology and telecommunications (ITT). Model estimates confirm a positive relationship between national productivity and R&D activity exists in the long run. Further, the benefits of R&D can spillover countries through trade, in particular, trade in ITT equipment.     

Financial market integration, labor markets, and macroeconomic policies

We used a dynamic two-country optimizing model featuring a labor–market friction to analyze the implications of financial market integration for the propagation of macroeconomic policies in an open economy. Our main result is that the labor–market friction we analyzed substantially reduces the magnitude of the effect of financial market integration on the propagation of macroeconomic policies.     

Price discrimination and price dispersion in a duopoly

This paper analyses the problem of price discrimination in a market where consumers have heterogeneous preferences both over a horizontal parameter (brand) and a vertical one (quality). Discriminatory contracts are characterized for different market structures. It is shown that price dispersion, i.e. the observed range of prices for each class of customers, increases almost everywhere as competition is introduced in the market.     

Selective immigration policies, human capital accumulation and migration duration in infinite horizon

An increasing literature fosters selective immigration policies as a tool to increase human capital in both source and destination countries. These policies are supposed to prompt incentives to education, and–if selection is sufficiently severe–to increase the human capital stock in source countries. Nonetheless, when compared to open migration, selective policies make returns to education uncertain, and they may harm incentives to invest in human capital. As a consequence, they may reduce the human capital stock even though selection is “severe”. Moreover, when repeated migration is possible, they backfire on migration duration. We obtain our results in an infinite-horizon model that, unlike the current literature, places no restriction on the number of possible migration spells and allows for the possibility of a forced emigration.     

Wage discrimination and population composition in the long run

We derive the conditions that sign the effects of changing population composition on wage levels and ratios, when labor supply and discrimination preferences vary. The overall effect depends on an aggregate market, a relative market, and a preference distribution effect.     

Employment and education discrimination against disabled people in Cape Verde

This article assesses the employment and school enrolment gaps between disabled and nondisabled persons using the last Cape Verdean census. The unexplained part of these gaps accounts for most of them, whatever the age group considered. Furthermore, differences in age structures between disabled and nondisabled persons have almost no effect on these gaps. Taking into account potential misclassification errors in the disability variable seems to change only marginally these results. These findings thus suggest that there is scope for programs to better target and promote employment and education of the disabled in Cape Verde.     

Welfare and growth impacts of innovation policies in a small, open economy; an applied general equilibrium analysis

We explore how innovation incentives in a small, open economy should be designed in order to achieve the highest welfare and growth. The computable general equilibrium model we develop for the purpose allows for research and development (R&D)-driven endogenous technological change embodied in varieties of capital. We study policy alternatives targeted towards R&D, capital varieties formation, and domestic investments in capital varieties. Subsidising domestic investments, thereby excluding stimuli to world market deliveries, generates less R&D, capital formation, economic growth, and welfare than do the other alternatives, reflecting that the domestic market for capital varieties is limited. In spite of breeding stronger economic growth, a higher number of patents, and a higher share of R&D in total production, direct R&D support generates slightly less welfare than subsidising formation of capital varieties. The costs in terms of welfare relates to a lower production within each variety firm, which in presence of mark-up pricing results in efficiency losses.     

History-based price discrimination and entry in markets with switching costs: A welfare analysis

We analyze history-based price discrimination in an asymmetric industry, where an incumbent, protected by switching costs, faces an entrant who does not have access to information about consumers’ purchase histories. We demonstrate that consumer surplus is higher with uniform pricing than with history-based price discrimination. We find that the entry decision is invariant to whether the incumbent implements history-based pricing or uniform pricing. This implies that the potential abuse of market dominance imposed by history-based price discrimination is exploitation, not exclusion. Finally, we establish that the profit gain to the incumbent from history-based pricing exceeds the associated loss to consumers.     

Market structure in mobile telecoms: qualified indirect access and the receiver pays principle

Scarcity of spectrum limits the number of competing network operators in mobile telecoms. In the United Kingdom a regulatory review is currently enquiring into the effects of limited competition in the mobile market. The European Commission is also reviewing competition in roaming across mobile networks in Europe. In the UK the industry regulator Oftel claims that the prices for calling mobile phones are too high. We show that such relatively high prices stem from asymmetric incentives. The convention in the UK is for the originating party to pay for a telephone call. If instead the receiver were to pay for some or all of a call, we show that prices of calls to mobiles would be lower. We also argue that qualified indirect access could stimulate more effective competition in mobile telecoms.     

Asymmetric Regulation of Access and Price Discrimination in Telecommunications*

Suppose that a strong and a weak operator compete in a telecommunications market. To terminate a call operators need access to the competitor’s network if the call is off-net. Operators set two-part tariffs and price-discriminate according to termination of a call. Suppose as a benchmark that access prices are regulated at costs. I show that the weak operator’s profit and consumer welfare increase if the regulator sets a higher price to access the weak operator’s network. However, total surplus decreases even locally. *I received helpful comments from Mark Armstrong, Toker Doganoglu, Tommaso Valletti, Julian Wright, and, in particular, two referees and the editor Michael Crew. I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Heisenberg Fellowship).     

Analysis of the energy access improvement and its socio-economic impacts in rural areas of developing countries

Access to modern energy is one of the most basic requirements for development. In rural areas of developing countries, there are a large number of people who do not have access to LPG and depend on traditional biomass such as wood, crop, and dung for cooking. In addition, energy has numerous and complex links with poverty reduction. Therefore, it is important to estimate the impacts of energy access improvement on socio-economic situation in the rural areas of developing countries quantitatively. This study focuses on socio-economic impacts of cooking demand through changes in stoves adopted by the rural households. We have developed an energy-economic model of rural areas in India to analyze the links between energy, income, and health hazard, applying both opportunity cost for using fuelwood and exposure to Resipirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM). As a result of the analysis, there is a positive relation between the opportunity cost and the average RSPM exposure of women in the rural areas. Following to increase in the opportunity cost, that is, income, the cost of an improved wood stove becomes relatively lower first than that of a traditional wood stove, and then a gas stove attains price competitiveness. It is achieved that the average RSPM exposure is below the WHO and Japanese criteria for Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM), 190 and 100 [μg/m³], at the opportunity cost of US$9 and 15/GJ, respectively.     

Optimal and Open Access Harvesting of Multi-Use Species in a Second-Best World

Expansion of human populations and activities has caused increased conflicts between wildlife and humans. As a result, the distinction between resource and pest species has become blurry. We propose an economically-based classification of species based on a multi-use bioeconomic model. The classification of the steady state population of a species is shown to depend on both species' density and economic factors. We extend earlier work on multi-use(resource-pest) species by applying the theoretical model to a developing country context where property rights to wildlife are imperfectly enforced, so that second-best trade measures are often applied by the international community to promote conservation. Upon calibrating the model using data for the African elephant, we derive three further results. First, when comparing the optimal stock of a multi-use species to the open access stock, we find that the ranking in terms of abundance is ambiguous. Second, and consistent with existing literature on resource management in a second-best world, our case study supports the idea that trade bans have ambiguous effectson wildlife abundance. Third, due to a bifurcation effect characterizing the multi-use model's solution, strategic and temporary subsidizing by the North may enable them to free ride on conservation efforts of the South henceforth.     

国际贸易与中国的实际经济周期——基于封闭与开放经济的RBC模型比较分析

本文先确定中国宏观经济波动的特征事实:消费波动与产量高度相关、投资波动大于产出的波动、净出口与GDP呈反周期变化。然后分别用封闭经济模型、小国开放经济模型和考虑了政府购买冲击的小国开放经济模型对中国经济进行实证检验。研究发现,封闭经济模型仅能解释产出、消费和投资波动的48.26%、24.39%和98.50%;而小国开放经济模型分别可以解释68.70%、69.51%、98.50%和TB/GDP率的97.42%;考虑了政府购买的小国开放经济模型的解释程度分别是83.91%、81.95%、99.63%和TB/GDP率的209.68%。比较分析表明开放经济模型比封闭经济模型能较好地解释中国的经济现象,并且随着政府购买引入到开放经济模型,该模型对经济的解释能力显著提高,说明这一模型更符合中国经济的特征事实。