IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iepoli/v62y2023ics016762452300001x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of taxation in the telecommunications industry

Author

Listed:
  • Katz, Raúl
  • Jung, Juan

Abstract

In this article we study the impact of taxation in the performance of the telecommunications sector. To do so, we develop a model that considers the taxes and fees imposed directly or indirectly along the telecommunications value chain. Overall, we find strong evidence of a negative impact on investment from an increase in regulatory fees, profit taxes, and excise taxes. In addition, telecommunication service prices are affected by the fiscal regime, both directly -through taxation over services- and indirectly, through obligations imposed on operators that can ultimately have an impact on service prices. We also find some evidence of the effect of custom duties for equipment and smartphones on the decrease of investment on broadband network deployment and service adoption, respectively. On this basis, we simulate a fiscal-reform scenario, consisting in removing sector-specific contributions to eliminate inter-sectoral asymmetries, with results suggesting significant gains in investment, coverage, and adoption. Considering these findings, and the potential socioeconomic gains from increasing broadband adoption, we believe that governments pursuing the development of digital agendas should consider potential fiscal reforms to accelerate the development of the digital economy. That being said, considering the potential loses in tax collection, a careful trade-off analysis should be performed before determining the nature and the scope of the fiscal reforms to be introduced.

Suggested Citation

  • Katz, Raúl & Jung, Juan, 2023. "The impact of taxation in the telecommunications industry," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iepoli:v:62:y:2023:i:c:s016762452300001x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.infoecopol.2023.101016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016762452300001X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2023.101016?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Devereux, Michael P & Griffith, Rachel, 2003. "Evaluating Tax Policy for Location Decisions," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(2), pages 107-126, March.
    2. Hardy, Andrew P., 1980. "The role of the telephone in economic development," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 278-286, December.
    3. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    4. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    5. Juan Jung & Angel Melguizo, 2022. "Rules, institutions, or both? Estimating the drivers of telecommunication investment in Latin America," Journal of Cyber Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 5-23, January.
    6. Dewenter Ralf & Haucap Justus, 2008. "Demand Elasticities for Mobile Telecommunications in Austria," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 228(1), pages 49-63, February.
    7. Karacuka, Mehmet & Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich, 2011. "Competition in Turkish mobile telecommunications markets: Price elasticities and network substitution," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 202-210, March.
    8. Elizabeth Mack & Alessandra Faggian, 2013. "Productivity and Broadband," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 36(3), pages 392-423, July.
    9. Koutroumpis, P. & Lekatsas, A. & Giaglis, G. & Kourouthanasis, P., 2011. "Between a rock and a hard place: Recession and telecoms taxation," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 681-688, August.
    10. Joel B. Slemrod, 1990. "Tax Effects on Foreign Direct Investment in the United States: Evidence from a Cross-Country Comparison," NBER Chapters, in: Taxation in the Global Economy, pages 79-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Michael Devereux & Harold Freeman, 1995. "The impact of tax on foreign direct investment: Empirical evidence and the implications for tax integration schemes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 2(1), pages 85-106, February.
    12. Liu, Li & Altshuler, Rosanne, 2013. "Measuring the Burden of the Corporate Income Tax Under Imperfect Competition," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 66(1), pages 215-237, March.
    13. Brittain, John A, 1971. "The Incidence of Social Security Payroll Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 110-125, March.
    14. Jost H. Heckemeyer & Michael Overesch, 2017. "Multinationals’ profit response to tax differentials: Effect size and shifting channels," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 965-994, November.
    15. B. Mak Arvin & Rudra P. Pradhan, 2014. "Broadband penetration and economic growth nexus: evidence from cross-country panel data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(35), pages 4360-4369, December.
    16. Koutroumpis, Pantelis, 2009. "The economic impact of broadband on growth: A simultaneous approach," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 471-485, October.
    17. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    18. Ms. Thornton Matheson & Patrick Petit, 2017. "Taxing Telecommunications in Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2017/247, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Charles Steindel, 2001. "The effect of tax changes on consumer spending," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 7(Dec).
    20. Robert Jensen, 2007. "The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 879-924.
    21. Jung, Juan, 2020. "Institutions and Telecommunications Investment," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    22. Beatty, Randolph & Riffe, Susan & Welch, Ivo, 1997. "How Firms Make Capital Expenditure Decisions: Financial Signals, Internal Cash Flows, Income Taxes and the Tax Reform Act of 1986," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 227-250, October.
    23. Jost H. Heckemeyer & Michael Overesch, 2017. "Multinationals profit response to tax differentials: Effect size and shifting channels," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(4), pages 965-994, November.
    24. Garbacz, Christopher & Thompson Jr, Herbert G., 2007. "Demand for telecommunication services in developing countries," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 276-289, June.
    25. Jung, Juan & Katz, Raúl, 2022. "Spectrum flexibility and mobile telecommunications development," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    26. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    27. Hakim, Sam & Neaime, Simon, 2014. "The demand elasticity of mobile telephones in the Middle East and North Africa," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-14.
    28. Ioan TalpoÅŸ & Ionel Vancu, 2009. "Corporate Income Taxation Effects On Investment Decisions In The European Union," Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, Faculty of Sciences, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, vol. 1(11), pages 1-51.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sawadogo, Fayçal, 2021. "Demand price elasticity of mobile voice communication: A comparative firm level data analysis," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    2. Jung, Juan & Katz, Raúl, 2022. "Spectrum flexibility and mobile telecommunications development," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    3. Abdramane Camara, 2023. "The Effect of Foreign Direct Investment on Tax Revenue," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 168-190, March.
    4. Abdramane Camara, 2019. "The effect of foreign direct investment on tax revenue in developing countries," Working Papers hal-03188025, HAL.
    5. Ward, Michael R. & Zheng, Shilin, 2016. "Mobile telecommunications service and economic growth: Evidence from China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 89-101.
    6. Briglauer, Wolfgang, 2014. "The impact of regulation and competition on the migration from old to new communications infrastructure: Recent evidence from EU27 member states," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-085, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Katz, Raúl & Jung, Juan & Callorda, Fernando, 2020. "Can digitization mitigate the economic damage of a pandemic? Evidence from SARS," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10).
    8. Charles Shaaba Saba & Nicholas Ngepah, 2022. "Nexus between telecommunication infrastructures, defence and economic growth: a global evidence," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 139-177, October.
    9. Raúl Katz & Juan Jung, 2022. "The Role of Broadband Infrastructure in Building Economic Resiliency in the United States during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(16), pages 1-14, August.
    10. Lange, Mirjam R.J. & Saric, Amela, 2016. "Substitution between fixed, mobile, and voice over IP telephony – Evidence from the European Union," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1007-1019.
    11. Thornton Matheson & Patrick Petit, 2021. "Taxing telecommunications in developing countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(1), pages 248-280, February.
    12. Edquist, Harald & Goodridge, Peter & Haskel, Jonathan & Li, Xuan & Lindquist, Edward, 2018. "How important are mobile broadband networks for the global economic development?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 16-29.
    13. Daniel Ştefan Armeanu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2017. "Empirical Study towards the Drivers of Sustainable Economic Growth in EU-28 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, December.
    14. Huy Quang Doan, 2019. "Trade, Institutional Quality and Income: Empirical Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-23, May.
    15. Imam, M. & Jamasb, T. & Llorca, M. & Llorca, M., 2018. "Power Sector Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Electricity Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1801, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Anamaria Diana Sova & Robert Sova, 2024. "The Covid‐19 pandemic and European trade flows: Evidence from a dynamic panel model," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 2563-2580, July.
    17. Zheng, Xinye & Li, Fanghua & Song, Shunfeng & Yu, Yihua, 2013. "Central government's infrastructure investment across Chinese regions: A dynamic spatial panel data approach," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 264-276.
    18. Mohammad Ziaul Hoque & MD. Rabiul Islam & Mohammad Nurul Azam, 2013. "Board Committee Meetings and Firm Financial Performance: An Investigation of Australian Companies," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 503-528, December.
    19. Alexander Klemm & Stefan Parys, 2012. "Empirical evidence on the effects of tax incentives," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(3), pages 393-423, June.
    20. Markowitz, Sara & Nesson, Erik & Robinson, Joshua J., 2019. "The effects of employment on influenza rates," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 286-295.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Telecommunications; Information and communication technologies; Taxation; Tributes; Tariffs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:iepoli:v:62:y:2023:i:c:s016762452300001x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505549 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.