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Treatment of Mobile Phone Licenses in the National Accounts
Author(s) -
Dippelsman Robert J.,
Mæhle Nils Ø.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/1475-4991.00093
Subject(s) - license , amortization , lease , payment , business , mobile phone , asset (computer security) , government (linguistics) , service (business) , intangible asset , finance , production (economics) , phone , economics , commerce , marketing , telecommunications , computer security , computer science , loan , microeconomics , linguistics , philosophy , operating system
This paper addresses the question of how to record mobile phone license payments in the national accounts. It concludes that there are usually two assets involved with mobile phone licenses: the spectrum, which is owned by the government, and the license, which is an intangible nonproduced asset sold by the government to the licenseholder. The values of these two assets are linked complementarily. A set of indicators is proposed that jointly may help judging whether the license or lease arrangement constitutes an asset in its own right or not. Alternative treatments of recording the license payments such as sale of the spectrum itself, other taxes on production, production of a service, or rent, are considered and rejected. Methods of amortization of the license over its life are considered.