Regulation, Ownership and Competition in the Telecommunication Sector: Evidence from Mena Countries
Abstract: In the 1980s, the institutional and regulatory framework of the telecommunication industry has changed radically but a lot still remains to be done notably in developing countries. MENA developing countries are presently experiencing a significant transformation in their telecommunication sectors due to the regulatory reform, the privatization, and the introduction of competition. Under the pressure of International Institutions (World Bank, IMF), the liberalization, deregulation and re-regulation of the telecom industries are at the political agenda of MENA governments. This paper empirically assesses the effect of regulation, privatization and competition reforms, as well as the interactions between different reforms in the telecommunication sector using a sample of 17 MENA developing countries for the period 1995-2010. We assume that different reform variables are affected by institutional, political and economic variables and we use IV-2SLS estimation to analyze the outcome of reforms in terms of telecom performance: access, prices and productivity. As a main result, we find that institutional, political and economic variables matter and affect telecom reforms, which in turn affect different performance indicators.
