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This paper presents new data on telecommunications reform for a cross section of countries. We measure telecommunications reform along two dimensions: entry barriers and regulatory independence. This data set is combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze the determinants of telecommunications policies. We find that entry barriers are positively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist legal tradition, but they are unrelated to the partisan ideology of reforming governments. We also find that countries with weak protection of investors' quasi-rents by other means, and countries with a larger incumbent, are more prone to create independent regulatory agencies, although the latter is a weaker result.

This paper presents new data, in the form of four indices, on liberalization policies and the independence of regulators for a cross section of countries. These indices are combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze both the determinants and the impact of telecommunications policies. We find that liberalization policies are negatively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist tradition, but not with the partisan ideology of reforming countries per se. We also find that countries where the institutional endowment constrains less the behaviour of the executive bodies, and countries with a stronger incumbent, are more prone to create truly independent regulatory agencies. There is weak evidence that the creation of independent regulatory agencies has a positive effect on network penetration when we take into account the endogeneity of regulatory independence.Keywords: telecommunications, liberalization, institutions JEL Classification: L96, L32, F21.RESUMEN: Este artículo presenta nuevos datos, resumidos en cuatro índices, sobre las políticas de liberalización e independencia de los reguladores para una sección cruzada de países. Estos índices se combinan con un conjunto amplio de datos de resultados, instituciones y variables políticas para analizar tanto los determinantes como el impacto de las políticas de telecomunicaciones. Hallamos que las políticas de liberalización se asocian negativamente con el grado en que los países se caracterizan por una tradición intervencionista, pero no con la ideología partidista de los gobiernos que deciden las reformas. También hallamos que países en los que la dotación institucional limita menos el comportamiento del ejecutivo, y países con una empresa establecida más fuerte, son más proclives a crear agencias reguladoras auténticamente independientes. Existe evidencia débil de que la creación de agencias independientes tiene un efecto positivo sobre el despliegue de redes cuando se tiene en cuenta la endogeneidad de la independencia regulatoria. Palabras clave: telecomunicaciones, liberalización, institucionesClasificación JEL: L96, L32, F21.a Comments are welcome. The opinions expressed in the paper do not necessarily reflect the IEB's opinions. b We thank Sandra Jódar for excellent research assistance. Support from the Research Centre "Public Sector Private Sector" at IESE Business School is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank

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A time-inconsistency problem in regulation often results in under-investment especially where there are high sunk costs in network industries such as electricity, gas, telecommunications and water. This paper provides a new perspective on this 'hold-up' problem facing the price regulation of a firm with market power where full commitment to a price regime is not possible. We compare a political equilibrium based on a voting model with lobbying with a delegation equilibrium, where a government can delegate to a particular 'type' of pro-or anti-industry regulator. Our analysis suggests two possible ways in which we may observe price regulation that encourages socially optimal investment in the absence of externally imposed regulatory commitment: first, there is less than total transparency in which voters receive an optimal amount of information and second, the decisions on price are delegated to a sufficiently, but not excessively, pro-industry regulator.JEL Classification: L51

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We analyse the impact of regulation, industrial policy and jurisdictional allocation on broadband deployment using a theoretical model and an empirical estimation. Although central powers may be more focused and internalize interjurisdictional externalities, decentralized powers may internalize local horizontal policy spillovers and use a diversity of objectives as a commitment device in the presence of sunk investments. The latter may, for instance, alleviate the collective action problem of the joint use of rights of way and other physical infrastructures. In the empirical exercise, using data for OECD and EU countries for the period 1999-2006, we examine whether centralization promotes new telecommunications markets, in particular the broadband access market. The existing literature, in the main, claims it does, but we find no support for this claim in our data. Our results show that indicators of national industrial policy are a weakly positive determinant of broadband deployment and that different measures of centralization are either irrelevant or have a negative impact on broadband penetration. JEL Codes: L50, L96, K23, H77

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