Competitively neutral universal service obligations

Axel Gautier () and Xavier Wauthy

No 2010061, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: Universal service obligations impose specific costs on the universal service provider. The measure of these costs and their financing have been studied along two complementary lines of reasoning: is the universal service obligation sustainable? Who should bear its costs? Most often, a two-step procedure is put forward. In a first step the cost of USO must be assessed; in a second step the USP must be compensated for this cost. In this paper we argue that this procedure is most often problematic because the implementation of the compensation scheme directly affects the effective cost of USO. We therefore put forward an alternative approach to this problem which does not rely on this two-step procedure and fully acknowledges the distortions that result from the compensation mechanism.

Keywords: universal service obligations; cost-sharing mechanism; competitive neutrality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L43 L51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-10-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Competitively neutral universal service obligations (2012)
Working Paper: Competitively neutral universal service obligations (2012)
Working Paper: Competitively Neutral Universal Service Obligations (2010)
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