While much economic policy presumes that more information infrastructure yields higher economic returns, little empirical work measures the magnitudes of these returns. We examine investment by local exchange telephone companies in fiber optic cable, ISDN lines and signal seven software, infrastructure which plays an essential role in bringing digital technology to local telephone networks. We estimate the elasticity of the derived demand for infrastructure investment faced by local exchange companies, controlling for factors such as local economic activity and the political disposition of state regulators. Our model postulates a regulated profit maximizing local exchange firm and a regulatory agency with predetermined political leanings in favor of consumer prices or firm profits. The model accounts for variation in state regulation and local economic conditions. In all our estimates we find that consumer demand is sensitive to investment in modern infrastructure, particularly as represented by fiber optic cable. Our estimates imply that infrastructure investment is responsible for a substantial fraction of the recent growth in consumer surplus and business revenue in local telecommunication services.

In recent years, regulators and businesses have struggled to keep pace with an onslaught of new technologies that has dramatically changed the world's telecommunications networks. This book gathers together research intended for those who must grapple with these changes -- the people who must decide whether and how to deploy new telecommunications technologies, and those who must regulate the technologies. The research is divided into three sections focusing on the past, present and future of telecommunications innovations. The first section, Lessons from the Past, examines what lessons concerning adoption and regulation can be learned by studying the diffusion of recent telecommunications technologies. The second section, Decision Making with Respect to Diffusing Technologies, examines possible improvements to the decision-making processes used by companies and regulators in the face of limited information and dynamic markets. The final section, Public Policy and Future Diffusion, examines public policy implications for future technologies.

This paper proposes a framework to model welfare effects that are associated with a price change in a population of heterogeneous consumers. The framework is similar to that of Hausman and Newey ( Econometrica, 1995, 63, 1445–1476), but allows for more general forms of heterogeneity. Individual demands are characterized by a general model that is nonparametric in the regressors, as well as monotonic in unobserved heterogeneity, allowing us to identify the distribution of welfare effects. We first argue why a decision maker should care about this distribution. Then we establish constructive identification, propose a sample counterparts estimator, and analyze its large‐sample properties. Finally, we apply all concepts to measuring the heterogeneous effect of a change of gasoline price using US consumer data and find very substantial differences in individual effects across quantiles.

"Projects and reforms targeting infrastructure services can affect consumer welfare through changes in the price, coverage, or quality of the services provided. The benefits of improved service quality-while significant-are often overlooked because they are difficult to quantify. This paper reviews methods of evaluating the welfare implications of changes in the quality of infrastructure services within the broader theoretical perspective of welfare measurement. The study outlines the theoretical assumptions and data requirements involved, illustrating each method with examples that highlight common methodological features and differences. The paper also presents the theoretical underpinnings and potential applications of a new approach to analyzing the effects of interruptions in the supply of infrastructure services on household welfare."--Cover verso.

Explores broadband adoption and the digital divide through a global perspective. Presents research on constructs such as relative advantage, utilitarian outcomes, hedonic outcomes, and service quality. Provides multicultural insight into what factors influence consumers' decisions to adopt broadband.

The collection of papers presented in this special issue arose out of two events. The first was the symposium "Escaping Satiation - Increasing Product Variety, Preference Change and the Demand Side of Economic Growth" which was held at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, in December 1997. The Fritz Thyssen Foundation provided financial support for this seminal symposium which is gratefully acknowledged. Wilhelm Ruprecht was of great help in preparing the symposium and I would like to express my gratitude to hirn on this occasion. Many stimulating exchanges with hirn over the past few years while he was a research associate at the Institute working on long term changes in consumption convinced me of the relevance and importance of this problem for understanding modem economic growth. I also owe thanks to many people who encouraged me to go ahead with the symposium, among them Stanley Metcalfe, Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, and also Ehud Zuscovitch, who died so unexpectedly last year.