The WTO's telecommunications commitments and the credibility of telecommunications regulatory reforms in small island developing states

Siope Vakataki 'Ofa

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Telecommunications regulatory reform is a recent phenomenon in small island developing states, including in five Pacific island states in the past five years. Opportunities for regulatory capture exist when independent regulators are vulnerable to political pressure. There is therefore a case for external multilateral policy restraint to deter policymakers from reneging on policies. This study estimates the impact of the telecommunications commitments of the WTO on a panel data set of 160 developing countries (including 26 small island developing states) during the period 1995–2006. Preliminary evidence is that the credibility of telecommunications reform in small island developing states is enhanced via commitments to WTO telecommunications agreements that lock in domestic reforms. No evidence was found that signing on to bilateral investment treaties enhanced the credibility of telecommunications reform in small island developing states.

Keywords: Trade Policy; Small Island Developing States; Telecommunications Reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F14 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Pacific Economic Bulletin 3.24(2009): pp. 39-57

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/66184/1/PEB_24_3_Ofa.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:pra:mprapa:66184

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().