IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecaffa/v38y2018i2p185-196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Universal Service Justified By The Public Interest? From The Early Days To The Digital Age

Author

Listed:
  • Dmitrii Trubnikov
  • Ekaterina Trubnikova

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that universal service is clearly justified by reference to the public interest, and this understanding stems from the natural monopoly paradigm. However, telecommunications monopolies have never been ‘natural’, and the alternative to regulation has always been a competitive marketplace. The liberalisation movement had a chance to create a genuinely competitive industry but failed to do so. This article argues that the universal service dogma has played a significant role in the formation of the ordered competition regime of modern telecommunications, and explains this phenomenon in terms of public choice theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Dmitrii Trubnikov & Ekaterina Trubnikova, 2018. "Is Universal Service Justified By The Public Interest? From The Early Days To The Digital Age," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 185-196, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecaffa:v:38:y:2018:i:2:p:185-196
    DOI: 10.1111/ecaf.12290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecaf.12290
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecaf.12290?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. H. Cremer & F. Gasmi & A. Grimaud & J. J. Laffont, 2001. "Universal Service: An economic perspective," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 5-43, March.
    2. Pradhan, Rudra P. & Arvin, Mak B. & Norman, Neville R. & Bele, Samadhan K., 2014. "Economic growth and the development of telecommunications infrastructure in the G-20 countries: A panel-VAR approach," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 634-649.
    3. Faulhaber, Gerald R., 2003. "Policy-induced competition: the telecommunications experiments," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 73-97, March.
    4. DiLorenzo, Thomas J, 1996. "The Myth of Natural Monopoly," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 9(2), pages 43-58.
    5. Facundo Alvaredo & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2017. "Global Inequality Dynamics: New Findings from WID.world," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 404-409, May.
    6. Joseph Stiglitz, 1999. "Promoting Competition in Telecommunications," UADE Working Papers 2_1999, Instituto de Economía, Universidad Argentina de la Empresa.
    7. Littlechild, Stephen, 2018. "Regulation and the nature of competition," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 211-223.
    8. Adam D. Thierer, 1994. "Unnatural Monopoly: Critical Moments in the Development of the Bell System Monopoly," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 14(2), pages 267-285, Fall.
    9. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    10. Richard T. Shin & John S. Ying, 1992. "Unnatural Monopolies in Local Telephone," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(2), pages 171-183, Summer.
    11. Federico Cingano, 2014. "Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 163, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dmitrii Trubnikov, 2020. "The Russian Telecommunications Experience: a Positive Outcome of the Competitive Order in the Industry," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 35-58, March.
    2. Edward J. Oughton & Ashutosh Jha, 2021. "Supportive 5G Infrastructure Policies are Essential for Universal 6G: Assessment using an Open-source Techno-economic Simulation Model utilizing Remote Sensing," Papers 2102.08086, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2021.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dmitrii Trubnikov, 2020. "The Russian Telecommunications Experience: a Positive Outcome of the Competitive Order in the Industry," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 35-58, March.
    2. Hahn, Robert & Evans, Lewis, 2010. "Regulating Dynamic Markets: Progress in Theory and Practice," Working Paper Series 4052, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    3. Birke, Franziska, 2007. "Universaldienstregulierung in der Telekommunikation heute: Herausforderungen, Chancen und Risiken ; ein historischer Ansatz," Discussion Papers 114, University of Freiburg, Institute for Transport Economics and Regional Policy.
    4. Waters II, William G., 2007. "Evolution of Railroad Economics," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 11-67, January.
    5. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    6. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    7. Thomas Wyrick & Roger Arnold, 1989. "Earmarking as a deterrent to rent-seeking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 283-291, March.
    8. Pavel Ciaian & Ján Pokrivčák & Dušan Drabik, 2008. "Prečo sú niektoré sektory v tranzitívnych ekonomikách menej reformované ako ostatné? prípad výskumu a vzdelávania v oblasti ekonómie [Why some sectors of transition economies are less reformed than," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2008(6), pages 819-836.
    9. Kris James Mitchener & Matthew Jaremski, 2014. "The Evolution of Bank Supervision: Evidence from U.S. States," NBER Working Papers 20603, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Masciandaro, D. & Nieto, M. & Prast, H.M., 2007. "Financial Governance of Banking Supervision," Other publications TiSEM 65d7ff26-dca3-4da3-86ff-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. J. Mark Ramseyer & Eric Rasmusen, 2013. "Lowering the Bar to Raise the Bar: Licensing Difficulty and Attorney Quality in Japan," Working Papers 2013-12, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    12. Grant H. Lewis, 2017. "Effects of federal socioeconomic contracting preferences," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 763-783, December.
    13. Mirabel, F. & Poudou, J.-C. & Roland, M., 2009. "Universal service obligations: The role of subsidization schemes," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-9, February.
    14. Støstad, Morten Nyborg & Cowell, Frank, 2024. "Inequality as an externality: Consequences for tax design," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    15. Rausser, Gordon C. & de Janvry, Alain & Schmitz, Andrew & Zilberman, David D., 1980. "Principal issues in the evaluation of public research in agriculture," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt74v9m7dh, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    16. Arvind Magesan & Matthew A. Turner, 2008. "The Value of Information in Public Decisions," Working Papers tecipa-345, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    17. Pedro Salas-Rojo & Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2022. "Inheritances and wealth inequality: a machine learning approach," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 27-51, March.
    18. Arblaster, Margaret & Zhang, Chrystal, 2020. "Liberalisation of airport air traffic control: A case study of Spain," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 38-47.
    19. Deniz Igan & Prachi Mishra & Thierry Tressel, 2012. "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 195-230.
    20. Faroque Ahmed & Md. Jamal Hossain & Mohammad Tareque, 2020. "Investigating the Roles of Physical Infrastructure, Financial Development and Human Capital on Economic Growth in Bangladesh," Journal of Infrastructure Development, India Development Foundation, vol. 12(2), pages 154-175, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecaffa:v:38:y:2018:i:2:p:185-196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0265-0665 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.