Telecom Traffic and Investment in Developing Countries


Book Description

In 1997 the U.S. Federal Communications Commission ordered sharp reductions in international settlement rates (bilaterally negotiated rates for telecom traffic between pairs of countries) for telecom traffic between the United States and the rest of the world. Even the very poorest countries, with the least developed telecommunications networks, must slash rates for traffic to the United States by 2003. Will this, by reducing telecom revenues in developing countries, reduce investments in those countries' telecom sectors?




Taxing Telecommunications in Developing Countries


Book Description

Developing countries apply numerous sector-specific taxes to telecommunications, whose buoyant revenues and formal enterprises provide a convenient “tax handle”. This paper explores whether there is an economic rationale for sector-specific taxes on telecommunications and, if so, what form they should take to balance the competing goals of promoting connectivity and mobilizing revenues. A survey of the literature finds that limited telecoms competition likely creates rents that could efficiently be taxed. We propose a “pecking order” of sector-specific taxes that could be levied in addition to standard income and value-added taxes, based on capturing rents and minimizing distortions. Taxes that target possible economic rents or profits are preferable, but their administrative challenges may necessitate reliance on service excises at the cost of higher consumer prices and lower connectivity. Taxes on capital inputs and consumer access, which distort production and restrict network access, should be avoided; so should tax incentives, which are not needed to attract foreign capital to tap a local market.







Global Markets and Government Regulation in Telecommunications


Book Description

In recent years, liberalization, privatization and deregulation have become commonplace in sectors once dominated by government-owned monopolies. In telecommunications, for example, during the 1990s, more than 129 countries established independent regulatory agencies and more than 100 countries privatized the state-owned telecom operator. Why did so many countries liberalize in such a short period of time? For example, why did both Denmark and Burundi, nations different along so many relevant dimensions, liberalize their telecom sectors around the same time? Kirsten L. Rodine-Hardy argues that international organizations – not national governments or market forces – are the primary drivers of policy convergence in the important arena of telecommunications regulation: they create and shape preferences for reform and provide forums for expert discussions and the emergence of policy standards. Yet she also shows that international convergence leaves room for substantial variation among countries, using both econometric analysis and controlled case comparisons of eight European countries.




India's Telecommunications Industry


Book Description

This book analyzes the growth of the Indian telecommunications industry in the era of liberalization - a period which has witnessed significant changes. Providing a detailed critique of government policy and of industry regulation, the author of this book maintains that the healthy growth of the industry requires a radical change in the entire policy approach. He questions the general impression that the telecommunications industry has been a great success. He offers an alternative way forward describing an efficent system of public policy generated through open public debate.




My Everyday French Word Book


Book Description

Drawings of everyday objects, activities, and scenes in France are accompanied by brief texts in English and vocabulary words, phrases, and short sentences in French.




Utility Privatization and the Needs of the Poor in Latin America


Book Description

Do Latin America's poor households lose from the privatization of infrastructure? How can policymakers minimize the risk of losses while promoting competition and private financing of infrastructure?




Foreign Direct Investment in Services and the Domestic Market for Expertise


Book Description

How important to welfare and growth in developing countries are restraints on foreign providers of producer services? Limiting such services not only may limit growth but may hurt some of the very people - domestic skilled workers in such service sectors - those restraints are designed to protect.




Telecommunications and Economic Development


Book Description




Infrastructure Investments in Developing Economies


Book Description

This book aims to provide knowledge on how infrastructure is planned and built in a typical developing country, and what key variables are there in the system limiting the efficient use of public investments in infrastructure. The book begins with a comprehensive literature review on construction and economic development, and trade and economic development. The focus of the book is on the case of Vietnam, with lessons drawn for other developing economies. The book employs the mixed use of data to provide a stronger basis for analysis and interpretation of related government policies. Based on the research findings, the book recommends significant capacity building work for Vietnam to develop capacities that would remove constraints on the efficient use of public investments in infrastructure. The general principles of significant capacity building work which are useful for policy implications are introduced in the book. Analysts, academics, public and private communities in developing countries can adopt the research findings as guiding principles to bring about changes in their current use of public investments in infrastructure, thus supporting their trade and economic growth in the long term.