CREATION OF A SEPARATE TELECOM REGULATORY AGENCY: A DURATION ANALYSIS OF ITS TIME PATTERN

At the center of the issues set out in the 1997 WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunication Services was the creation of separate telecom regulatory agencies. Using the Cox proportional hazards model, this study examines how a country's socioeconomic factors affect the country's incentive to reorganize its regulatory structure and create a separate telecom regulatory agency. The main empirical findings suggest that a country's incentive to institute a separate telecom regulatory body is greater when its telecom sector performance is relatively poor and its political environment is more competitive with few institutional barriers. (JEL "L52, L96") Copyright 2006 Western Economic Association International.