Behind the Scenes of the Telecommunications Miracle: An Empirical Analysis of the Indian Market

We analyze the demand and supply characteristics of the Indian telecommunications market, in order to assess the potential effectiveness of universal access policies in developing countries. We provide some empirical evidence on the supply and demand characteristics, using a small time-series-cross-section dataset on Indian States. We suggest that the price elasticity of demand for mainlines might be sensibly higher than the levels usually found in developed countries, while the crucial role of income and other sociodemographic variables seems to be confirmed. We also study the impact of cellular penetration, identifying a (positive) network effect in low penetration areas and some evidence of substitution (displacement) in the most developed ones. We finally analyze the supply side of the market, trying to assess the impact of market competition on investment: competition seemingly helps stimulating investment in the most developed areas, but has probably no significant impact in the less developed ones.telecommunications demand, universal service, competition, developing countries, India

Incomplete Regulation, Competition and Entry in Increasing Returns to Scale Industries

The paper analyzes the effects of liberalization in increasing returns to scale industries. It studies the optimal regulation of an incumbent competing with an unregulated strategic competitor, when public funds are costly. The model shows a trade off between productive and allocative efficiency. Moreover, the welfare gains of liberalization, as compared with regulated monopoly, are a non monotonic function of the cost of public funds. Finally, in the case of severe cash constraint of the government, incomplete regulation may also dominate full regulation of duopoly.Incomplete Regulation, Asymmetric Information, Incentives, Cost of Public Funds.

Regulating National Firms in a Common Market

We consider the regulation of national firms in a common market. Regulators can influence the production of national firms but they incur in a positive cost of public funds. First, we show that market integration is welfare improving if and only if the efficiency gains compensate for the negative public finance effect (related to business stealing). We also show that supranational competition can have very different consequences on the rent seeking behaviour of firms, depending on cost correlation and ex-ante technological risk. Finally, we characterize the global optimum and show how it can be sustained in a decentralized bargaining solution.regulation, competition, market integration, cost of public funds

Economic Integration and Investment Incentives in Regulated Industries

The paper studies the impact of market integration on investment incentives in non-competitive industries. It distinguishes between investment in transportation and production cost-reducing technologies. Each domestic firm is controlled by a national regulator in a common market made of two countries. When public funds are costly, and production costs in the two countries are not very different, business stealing effect decreases welfare in both countries. Welfare increases in both countries when the difference in production costs is large enough. Market integration tends to increase the level of sustainable investment in costreducing technology compared to autarky. This is in contrast with the systematic underinvestment problem arising for transportation facilities. Free-riding reduces the incentives to invest in these public-good components, while business-stealing reduces the capacity for financing new investment.

Intellectual Property Rights Adoption in Developing Countries

This paper studies the incentives that developing countries have to enforce intellectual properties rights (IPR). On the one hand, free-riding on rich countries technology reduces the investment cost in R&D. On the other hand, it yields apotential indirect cost: a firm that violates IPR cannot legally export in a country that enforces them. IPR act like a barrier to entry of the advanced economy markets. Moreover free-riders cannot prevent other to copy their own innovation. The analysis, which distinguishes between large and small developing countries, predicts that small ones should be willing to respect IPR if they want to export and access advanced economies markets, while large emerging countries, such as China and India, will be more reluctant to do so as their huge domestic markets develop. Global welfare is higher under the full protection regime if the developing country does not innovate. It is higher under a partial regime if both countries have access to similar R&D technology and the developing country market is large enough

Universal Intellectual Property Rights: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Developing countries' incentives to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) are studied in a model of vertical innovation. Enforcing IPR boosts export opportunities to advanced economies but slows down technological transfers and incentives to invest in R&D. Asymmetric protection of IPR, strict in the North and lax in the South, leads in many cases to a higher world level of innovation than universal enforcement. IPR enforcement is U-shaped in the relative size of the export market compared to the domestic one: rich countries and small/poor countries enforce IPR, the former to protect their innovations, the latter to access foreign markets, while large emerging countries free-ride on rich countries' technology to serve their internal demand

Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Trade: An Empirical Analysis

The paper proposes an empirical analysis of the determinants of the adoption of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and their impact on innovation in manufac- turing. The analysis is conducted with panel data covering 112 countries. First we show that IPR protection is U-shaped with respect to a country’s market size and inverse-U-shaped with respect to the aggregated market size of its trade partners. Second, reinforcing IPR protection reduces on-the-frontier and inside-the-frontier innovation in developing countries, without necessarily increasing innovation at the global level

Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Trade: An Empirical Analysis

The paper proposes an empirical analysis of the determinants of the adoption of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and their impact on innovation in manufac- turing. The analysis is conducted with panel data covering 112 countries. First we show that IPR protection is U-shaped with respect to a country’s market size and inverse-U-shaped with respect to the aggregated market size of its trade partners. Second, reinforcing IPR protection reduces on-the-frontier and inside-the-frontier innovation in developing countries, without necessarily increasing innovation at the global level

Regulating national firms in a common market under asymmetric information

International audienceIn a supranational common market, national regulation can produce inefficiencies. National regulators typically care only for domestic welfare and they tend to push national firms in the common market. When information about production costs is held privately by firms and is unknown to the regulator, competition between national and foreign firms can help to reduce the information rents captured by national producers and thus increase efficiency. This is more likely when the production costs of national and foreign firms are highly correlated, for instance because firms use similar technologies. In other cases, market share rivalry pushes national regulators to inefficiently expand the production of national firms, also increasing the information rents. When the ex-ante uncertainty of the production costs is high, the creation of a common market is more likely to increase expected welfare, as compared to separated national markets