Equity justifications for universal service obligations

Jean-Christophe Poudou and Michel Roland ()
Additional contact information
Michel Roland: CREATE, Centre de Recherche en économie de l'Environnement, de l'Agroalimentaire, des Transports et de l'Énergie - ULaval - Université Laval [Québec], ULaval - Université Laval [Québec]

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Equity is often invoked as a possible justification for the imposition of universal service obligations (USOs). However, no previous analysis supports a formal link between equity and USO. In this paper, we describe the extent to which the im- position of USOs in oligopolistic network industries can meet the objectives of an inequality-averse regulator. We show that USOs can be used for equity purposes provided that the regulator is able to control the competitive structure of the industry. We also show that the uniform pricing constraint, which is an obligation to offer the same price conditions to all consumers, is welfare-enhancing but rather surprisingly, it does not necessarily improve equity.

Keywords: Universal service obligations; Price constraint; equity; coverage and price constraints; regulation; Coverage constraint (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-05
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.umontpellier.fr/hal-01810301
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2017, 52, pp.63 - 95. ⟨10.1016/j.ijindorg.2017.01.007⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.umontpellier.fr/hal-01810301/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Equity justifications for universal service obligations (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01810301

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2017.01.007

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().