Computing an Overall Index for Regulatory Reforms Required in the Fixed Telecommunication Segment Over the World

This paper provides a review and classification of the main regulatory reforms required in the fixed telecommunication segment. It also describes the methodology of the construction of a relevant measure of regulation. Precisely, we provide a description of the method of scoring of the individual regulatory reforms, as well as, the computation method of the overall regulatory index which aggregates the most applied regulatory reforms in the fixed telecom sector over the world. We collect data information from public sources including the regulatory data base of the International telecommunication Union (ITU) published in the year 2012 and contains regulatory information data for developed and developing countries in the world during the period from 2004 to 2011, as well as the database of the Plaut Economics. We complete the missing information data from the official reports that came from the regional and international organizations and the web sites of the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) of different countries considered. We are based on the scoring methodology of Zenhäeusern et al. (2007, 2012 a, 2012 b) to construct individual measures of regulatory reforms adopted since the opening of telecommunication markets to competition. Our overall regulatory index, which aggregates these individual measures of regulatory reforms, permits to measure the intensity of regulation in the fixed telecom sector for 107 developed and developing countries during the period of 2004-2011