This paper analyzes Senegal's experience with telecommunications liberalization and privatization. Senegal privatized its incumbent operator in 1997, and granted the newly privatized firm seven years of fixed-line exclusivity while introducing"managed competition"in the cellular market and free...

The authors examine patterns of media ownership in 97 countries around the world. They find that almost universally the largest media firms are controlled by the government or by private families. Government ownership is more pervasive in broadcasting than in the printed media. Government...

In 1998 the Government of Malawi decided to reform its telecommunications sector. Although the reform was ambitious in some ways, it was modest when compared with the most ambitious reforms adopted elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. The two main accomplishments were splitting the incumbent fixed...

By the end of the 1990s, most industrial and many developing countries had liberalized their telecommunications markets to improve service accessibility and affordability for both businesses and households. In contrast, Algeria still managed its telecommunications sector as public property. The...

The U.S.-Mexico case (2002-04) was the first (and so far only) case of World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute resolution on telecommunications services and the first on services only. The findings of the Panel charged with settling the dispute contain interpretations of the General Agreement on...

In 1996 Ghana privatized its incumbent telecommunications firm by selling 30 percent of Ghana Telecom to Telekom Malaysia, licensing a second network operator, and allowing multiple mobile firms to enter the market. The reforms yielded mixed results. Landline telephone penetration increased...

If the Internet made it easier for firms to enter new markets by reducing communication and search costs, then it may also have made it easier to export goods and services. The authors find that higher Internet penetration in developing countries is correlated with greater exports to industrial...

The authors investigate whether resident enterprise managers have an informational advantage about the countries in which they work. They propose a method for extracting information available to resident managers but unknown to investors and forecasters. They rest their hypothesis of...

A major result of the Uruguay Round was the creation of a General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The GATS greatly extends coverage of the multilateral trading system, establishing rules and disciplines on policies affecting access to service markets. In this paper, the author asks: what...

Establishing an investment promotion agency has become a central part of most countries'development strategies. Today there are more than 150 investment promotion agencies worldwide. Yet very little is known about what these agencies have been really doing, notably in emerging countries, and...