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Universal Service: An economic perspective
Author(s) -
Cremer H.,
Gasmi F.,
Grimaud A.,
Laffont J. J.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
annals of public and cooperative economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.526
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-8292
pISSN - 1370-4788
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8292.00158
Subject(s) - universal service , maturity (psychological) , service (business) , perspective (graphical) , diversity (politics) , universal design , business , computer science , process management , risk analysis (engineering) , industrial organization , economics , telecommunications , marketing , political science , artificial intelligence , world wide web , law
This paper discusses some important issues that feed the debate on the notion of Universal Service, namely, its definition, justification, cost and financing, within a unified economic framework. In view of the diversity of both the historical and forward looking situations under which the implementation of universal service is envisioned, we provide a systematic analysis of the economic trade‐offs associated with various scenarios. We also draw on some actual universal service experiences that have reached some appreciable level of maturity, most notably in telecommunications and postal services, to illustrate and sometimes fine tune some of our arguments.