This paper examines the issue of financing the social goal of universal access to the telephone network. There are many feasible methods of financing the subsidies involved. We show that alternative financing schemes differ in terms of their economic efficiency, equity, political attractiveness,...

This paper examines how issues ranging from inflation to monopolization in the former Soviet Union are occasionally misdiagnosed, leading to sub-optimal prescriptions for reform. The misdiagnosis occurs because the pre-reform state of the Russian economy is often taken at face value as a...