Getting connected : competition and diffusion in African mobile telecommunications markets

The author studies the determinants of the diffusion of mobile telecommunications in Africa in a fixed effects model. He uses data from 1987-2000 on 41 African countries that have adopted cellular telecommunications technologies. He finds that competition is the driving force behind the mobile telecommunications explosion in Africa. Duopoly and triopoly markets grow significantly faster than monopoly markets, although growth does not appear to differ between the first two markets. Evidence of preemptive behavior is found in competitive sequential entries into the market, but the major effect of competition on diffusion occurs after the actual year of entry. The introduction of digital technology has a positive and significant effect on the diffusion of mobile phones. The presence of an incumbent-owned cellular operator has a negative effect on the diffusion of mobiles, suggesting an abuse of a dominant position by the incumbent fixed-line operator. However, privatization of the incumbent fixed-line cellular operator accelerates mobile growth and mitigates that negative effect.Trade Finance and Investment,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Governance Indicators,Health Economics&Finance

Globalization and the Rise of Mega-Cities in the Developing World

Thomas Friedman has argued in The World is Flat that those who deny rapid globalization will not survive in the global economy. First, we critically discuss Friedman’s views and highlight the new globalization driven by outsourcing and vertical specialization. Second, we argue that Friedman pays insufficient attention to the spectacular growth of mega-cities in the developing world. The world is not flat, and the developing world certainly is not. Still, mega-cities tend to become too big. Their growth also goes hand in hand with formation of slums and congestion. We thus argue that there is a role for public policies.globalization, unbundling, off-shoring, mega-cities, congestion, public policies

The Essence of the Digitalization Process as a New Global Informatization Stage

The article describes the essence of the term "digitalization" and shows the nature of this process. The impact on people's lives and globalization itself have been determined as a result of the conducted study. Particular attention has been drawn to digital transformation, its use in the business context and its impact on such organizations as government, government agencies and other institutions involved in addressing social and global issues such as pollution and aging, using one or more existing and new technologie

Survey of public data sources on the Internet usage and other Internet statistics

The Internet research is mainly driven by data. Obtaining such data by planning and launching measurement campaigns is rather time consuming and costly. Much more efficient, and in many cases, sufficient data acquisition strategy is to exploit the existing datasets available in public databases, repositories, and documents. Hence, the public data sources related to the Internet usage and other Internet statistics are systematically surveyed and categorized to make the search for the Internet data much easier and faster. Extensive online searches and exploring websites of the key organizations were used to identify the data sources. Each data source was then carefully explored to describe its characteristics and contents. The data are usually aggregated over certain time periods and regions, and often indexed by age, gender, application, website, activity and other attributes. Some data sources also support various data visualization options, and offer data export in multiple formats

Telecommunications reform in Uganda

The paper documents the case of Uganda's telecommunications reform. Uganda is one of only two countries in Africa that decided to privatize telecommunications in a competitive framework by selling a second national operator license. The authors find that Uganda did not sacrifice significant sales proceeds by choosing competition, but instead gained tremendously in both the speed and scale of investment from its early focus on competition.Knowledge Economy,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Decentralization,ICT Policy and Strategies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Education for the Knowledge Economy

Under Attack: Trading Digitally in the Age of Vulnerability

The rise in digitalization has sparked the Fourth Industrial Revolution, raising new concerns and deep divisions throughout the European Union (EU). While the adoption of the Digital Single Market Strategy on May 6, 2015 attempted to adapt to the increasingly digital world, it further highlighted differences among Member States. This paper argues that cross-national variations in digital trade restrictiveness can be explained by the number of cyber-attacks a Member state experiences. This study differs from existing explanations in that it takes a technological perspective and attempts to explain a digital question with a digital phenomenon. The paper tests this hypothesis through a combination of anecdotal and quantitative evidence. Anecdotal evidence regarding the evolution of cyber-attacks in France in Germany suggests that both countries responded to cyber-attacks with strict national legislation towards digital issues. A simple linear regression of the number of cyber-attacks on a country’s Digital Trade Restrictiveness assesses the magnitude of the relationship between these variables for a sample of 28 EU Member States. While the data suggests a causal relationship between the two variables, further research is required to provide a more complete explanation for the variation in question

Polygamy As a Form of Marriage: Based on Sociological Research

Polygamy as a form of marriage is, as a rule, more common in Arab and Muslim countries than in Russia. The desire of modern Russian men to commit polygamy can be interpreted as a consequence of the improvement in their material condition, which makes possible to support two or more wives and their children, while at the same time not taking into consideration the moral side of the issue that it is necessary to devote the same amount of time to all wives, to solve family problems if necessary, and to raise children. Despite the fact that the Quran says that it is better to take divorced and single mothers as the second and the third wives to support them, modern men are not guided by moral and religious principles, but rather by the desire to have a younger wife. This article presents the results of sociological research, both quantitative and qualitative. As a quantitative study, we conducted a pilot survey of Muslim women in the Republic of Tatarstan, which revealed some trends in the socialization of Muslims in Russian society. Further, a number of qualitative studies were conducted in order to study the Muslim environment in more depth: in-depth interviews with Russian Muslim women, as well as semi-structured interviews with imams of mosques. The results of the research made it possible to create a typology of polygamous families: — a Man with a good financial situation, in some cases having a high status in society, which can allow him to support several wives and their children, creates a marriage with several wives. In this type, family members are not always practicing Muslims, most often they are ethnic Muslims. — Male migrants, more often coming from CIS countries, less often from Arab countries, leave their wives and children, come to work in Russia and create new families. However, for such wives from Russia, there is no guarantee that the husband will not leave for his homeland and will not return. — A man who belongs to non-traditional religious movements, where it is possible without observing the necessary conditions to conduct the nikah rite with a woman from the same ”group” that shares his ”religious” views, including without notification, permission of the first wife. More often, this is a man who does not have the financial ability to support several wives. Keywords: polygamy, polygamous family, Muslim women, Muslim, Isla

INNOVATIVE CITY IN WEST CHINA CHONGQING

This working paper offers insights on science and technology in China with supporting official and interview data. The paper, as evidenced from the title, is indicating the future role of Chongqing and its evolution primarily focusing on the period of rapid development of the Municipality after Chongqing became a political entity on the same level as provinces of China. This has coincided with the planning, construction and completion of the Three Gorges Dam Project involving the resettlement of 1,000,000 people – most them coming to the rural areas Chongqing Municipality. Three major sub-themes are highlighted. First, the city played important role during more than 2000 years of its history (in 1981, for example it became first inland port in China open for foreign commerce). In the XX century Chongqing was national capital during the Second World War and the Japanese invasion (Nationalists government). Since then it enjoyed higher political status and economic independence than any other city of the same size in whole western China. Second, the municipality’s geographical position and demographic condition makes it quite unique in West China. It has a population of 31 million, an area of 82 square km, a population density of 379 persons per km2 and a location at the upper reaches of Chang (Yangtze) River. This makes it the gate of Southwest China. Third, Chongqing has a strong basic multi-faced economy in the region. Central investment since the 1950s has assisted the development of a relatively strong modern industrial base in the city. Despite the post-Mao reform era’s impact on social and economic disparities as between the coastal areas and the west, Chongqing remains one of the China’s strongest city economies. Its industrial output value ranked 11th among the 35 biggest city economies in China in 2000, though it ranked behind the top ten most industrialized coastal cities, all of which had attracted much greater foreign investment during the reform era. The campaign to Open up the West provides Chongqing with the opportunity to act as the growth pole for a number of less industrialized provincial-level units in north-west and south-west China. Fourth, the initiatives by central authorities and the extraordinary task of Three Gorges Dam project required among other great tasks also relocation of over 1,2 million people, the rebuilding of two cities, eleven county towns and one hundred sixteen townships from the site of Three Gorges Dam water reservoir. Until 2005 there were already almost one million residents resettled. Less than 20 per cent moved outside Chongqing municipality and the majority was to be accommodated within the region of Chongqing Municipality.Regional development; clusters; Regional innovation System (RIS); Development block; competence block; technology system; High Technology Parks; Overview of Science and Technology; FDI

Assisted e-commerce as a tool to gap digital divides : possibilities of adapting the Indian model to Finnish environment

Digitalization of services is a current trend and services and products are being increasingly digitalized. Still, there are large amounts of people with either no means, skills or will to use information systems. Such digital divide between digital “haves” and have-nots” is a global problem and is causing inequalities. Although Finland is one of the most digitally connected countries in the world, the problem of digital divide is present here as well. Especially it is the problem for elderly population in sparsely inhabited areas, as the services are being digitalized and physical outlets are centralized to larger centres. In India the digital gap is vast and number of people with insufficient skills, hardware or infrastructure is large. To bridge this gap, a business model of assisted e-commerce has emerged. It combines virtual services with assistant and works on the side of a physical business, providing the skills, hardware and trust for its user. This research aims to clarify the concept of assisted e-commerce for transferability to another environment and researches the attitudes of elderly population in Finland for such a business model to gap the digital divide for them. The empirical part of this research is based on thematical interviews in India and Finland. As the concept of assisted e-commerce is relatively new, two interviews have been conducted with Indian developers of assisted e-commerce concept to clarify the model and get an understanding, how the model can be modified for transferability to another environment, for example, Finnish. The core finding was, that the assisted e-commerce is a light service which can be integrated on the side of another physical store without excessive inputs required from the agent. In Finland goal of the inter-views was to find out the attitudes and current use of digital services among people of age 65+ years. The interview topic was considered very uncomfortable and the people were either reluctant to talk about digital related topics or had very strong negative opinions towards them. The assisted e-commerce model is very versatile and can contain almost any services that can be digitalized. The assistant can be either physical person, or virtual with video or chat support. The largest hindrance for adapting the service model in Finland is the attitudes of potential user group, who often select in their day to day lives a more expensive, time-consuming and ineffective method of dealing when there is a digital option provided. The elderly tend to be reluctant to use the digital devices, have little or none interest for learning to use new digital services or have no courage for operating with online services. Family and other close social networks influence is important in encouraging for digital service use, but the priority still seems to be operating with a “real” person

Tendências convergentes do desenvolvimento da mídia nacional sob as condições contemporâneas de globalização e modernização da esfera da mídia

This article is devoted to the analysis of the modern national media development features under the influence of rapidly progressing phenomena of convergence and modernization. The ubiquitous spread of the Internet has led to dramatic changes in many spheres of life, including in journalism. The nature and specificity of communication between people, the culture of distribution and consumption of information, the genre features of the media, and the work of the editorial offices are currently undergoing significant transformations, largely due to the processes of convergence. In this regard, in the work there was defined the essence of the concept "convergence", and there were described various types of convergences: network convergence, convergence of terminals and convergence of services by the example of Kazakhstan mass media. The empirical material was Kazakhstan's network and regional news portals, newspapers and radio stations, which are the main channels for the distribution of content. The study showed that when creating their own websites, the mass media are trying to implement the principles of multimedia and hypertextuality in order to attract the audience, involving the active use of information in the form of text, animation, iconography, video and audio materials, and the principle of interactivity, aimed at organizing effective interaction with audience. Este artículo está dedicado al análisis de las características modernas de desarrollo de medios nacionales bajo la influencia de fenómenos de convergencia y modernización que progresan rápidamente. La difusión ubicua de Internet ha llevado a cambios dramáticos en muchas esferas de la vida, incluido el periodismo. La naturaleza y especificidad de la comunicación entre las personas, la cultura de distribución y consumo de información, las características del género de los medios y el trabajo de las oficinas editoriales están experimentando transformaciones significativas, en gran parte debido a los procesos de convergencia. En este sentido, en el trabajo se definió la esencia del concepto "convergencia", y se describieron varios tipos de convergencias: convergencia de redes, convergencia de terminales y convergencia de servicios con el ejemplo de los medios de comunicación de Kazajstán. El material empírico fue la red de Kazajstán y los portales regionales de noticias, periódicos y estaciones de radio, que son los canales principales para la distribución de contenido. El estudio mostró que cuando crean sus propios sitios web, los medios masivos intentan implementar los principios de multimedia e hipertextualidad para atraer al público, involucrando el uso activo de información en forma de texto, animación, iconografía, video y materiales de audio y el principio de interactividad, dirigido a organizar una interacción efectiva con la audiencia.Este artigo é dedicado à análise das características modernas de desenvolvimento da mídia nacional sob a influência de fenômenos de convergência e modernização que progridem rapidamente. A difusão onipresente da Internet levou a mudanças dramáticas em muitas esferas da vida, inclusive no jornalismo. A natureza e especificidade da comunicação entre as pessoas, a cultura de distribuição e consumo de informação, as características do gênero da mídia e o trabalho das editorias estão passando por significativas transformações, em grande parte devido aos processos de convergência. Neste sentido, na obra, definiu-se a essência do conceito "convergência", e foram descritos vários tipos de convergências: convergência de redes, convergência de terminais e convergência de serviços pelo exemplo dos meios de comunicação do Cazaquistão. O material empírico foi a rede do Cazaquistão e portais regionais de notícias, jornais e estações de rádio, que são os principais canais de distribuição de conteúdo. O estudo mostrou que, ao criar seus próprios sites, os meios de comunicação tentam implementar os princípios de multimídia e hipertextualidade para atrair o público, envolvendo o uso ativo da informação na forma de texto, animação, iconografia, vídeo e áudio. e o princípio da interatividade, visando organizar uma interação efetiva com o público