TY - JOUR
T1 - Calling democracies and dictatorships
T2 - The effect of political regime on international long-distance rates
AU - Holkeboer, Christian Bachelder
AU - Vreeland, James Raymond
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2013/8
Y1 - 2013/8
N2 - Do political regimes systematically impact the price of international long-distance phone calls? We argue that, compared to autocracies, democratic governments have stronger incentives to regulate the provision of telephone service efficiently. In contrast, autocracies have incentives to limit communication between their citizens and the rest of the world. We thus expect the price of international long-distance to vary with political regime. Controlling for other factors that may impact long-distance pricing - such as level of economic development - we test this hypothesis using a cross-section of 190 countries and find evidence of a democracy-discount. It costs less to call democracies by about 25 percent.
AB - Do political regimes systematically impact the price of international long-distance phone calls? We argue that, compared to autocracies, democratic governments have stronger incentives to regulate the provision of telephone service efficiently. In contrast, autocracies have incentives to limit communication between their citizens and the rest of the world. We thus expect the price of international long-distance to vary with political regime. Controlling for other factors that may impact long-distance pricing - such as level of economic development - we test this hypothesis using a cross-section of 190 countries and find evidence of a democracy-discount. It costs less to call democracies by about 25 percent.
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U2 - 10.1111/kykl.12030
DO - 10.1111/kykl.12030
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84880384852
SN - 0023-5962
VL - 66
SP - 417
EP - 437
JO - Kyklos
JF - Kyklos
IS - 3
ER -