Analyses Australia's flawed telecommunications regulations and proposes reforms to break the impasse.
Australia's telecommunications policy has hit an impasse. Government attempted to turn a monopoly into a competitive market with multiple players. A decade later, the result has been underinvestment and services which are falling behind other countries.
Wrong Number explains how and why that has occurred. A flawed regulatory regime has distorted prices, deterred investment and privileged rent-seeking over genuine competition. The ACCC's administration of that regime has made matters worse, setting access charges below cost while extending the reach of regulation far beyond any reasonable bounds. As investment and innovation have stalled, government, rather than reforming the regulatory arrangements, has staggered from one poorly conceived half-measure to the next. In the process, billions of dollars of taxpayers' money have been spent, with much of that money wasted.
Henry Ergas argues that until the flawed regulatory regime is changed, the impasse will not be broken. In Wrong Number he sets out a systematic analysis of Australia's telecommunications impasse and presents a program of reform.
