A firm-level panel-data Approach to Efficiency, Total Factor Productivity, Catch-Up and Innovation and Mobile Telecommunications Reform (1995-2007)

A firm-level panel-data Approach to Efficiency, Total Factor Productivity, Catch-Up and Innovation and Mobile Telecommunications Reform (1995-2007)

By Li, Y.

Abstract: Regulatory reform of the mobile telecommunications sector has been introduced to improve productivity and competitiveness. We use Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Analysis, and a second-stage econometric analysis to identify the effect of different aspects of reform on productivity and its constituent parts across twenty-two firms from seven countries over 1998-2007. While measures of firm performance are sensitive to the choice of methodology, we find robust evidence that competition and independent regulation improve firm efficiency. Privatized firms are not necessarily more efficient, but can improve productivity more quickly than their public counterparts.