رشد بهره وری کل عوامل در صنعت مخابرات اوگاندا

The telecommunication sector is usually thought to be characterized by high productivity growth rates arising from increasing returns to scale. The actual productivity patterns in the sector, however, need to be empirically determined. A panel data set was assembled and a common set of input and output indicators was constructed to support the estimation of the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity index via input-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis. A general specification encompassing all available input and output data was employed to obtain the average total factor productivity changes for the sector. Over the study period, there was total factor productivity growth in Uganda’s telecommunications industry, which was mainly due to technical or technological progress as opposed to technical efficiency. These results indicate the existence of a potential for tariff reduction via the X-factor in the price cap formula.

The pattern of total factor productivity in the telecommunications industry has attracted considerable attention in the literature following the practice of liberalisation and privatisation in many parts of the world. Productivity patterns provide a critical input in computation of the X-factor, which can be used to correct market failures in the industry. Market failures in the telecommunications sector largely arise from increasing returns. The ensuing productivity increases should ideally, at least in part, be passed on to the consumers. However, due to imperfections in the market, firms will not have sufficient incentives on their own to pass on the gains in productivity to final consumers. It is the need to curb these incentives that brings telecommunication regulation into the picture. There is now almost universal consensus that price-based incentive regulation is more suited to mimic the efficient market outcomes as compared to other approaches. The basic regulatory apparatus employed in almost all incentive regulatory practices is the price caps approach. Price caps are set by regulators and permit telecommunication operators to adjust their prices upwards within certain predetermined ranges reflecting increases in inflation and other exogenous factors such as increased taxes. At the same time price caps allow possibilities for improvement in consumers’ welfare over time to reflect growth in total factor productivity. The welfare improvement resulting from total factor productivity growth is commonly referred to as the X-factor or the productivity offset. These components of the price cap formula need to be empirically determined both for regulatory and other general policy purposes. Whereas information pertaining to inflation expectations and other components of the price cap formula such as exogenous variations in tax rates can easily be predicted at the aggregate macroeconomic level from the overall monetary and fiscal policy stance, total factor productivity for regulatory purposes on the other hand, needs to be measured. Presently however, the patterns of the telecommunications industry productivity in Uganda are not known.1 There are reasons why undertaking a study of total factor productivity patterns in Uganda’s telecommunications industry is important. The country has in the recent past moved fast to implement reforms and create an enabling environment to hasten the spread and adoption of telecommunication services. The single most important reform has been the dismantling of a state monopoly that previously dominated the provision of telecommunication services so as to encourage competition and expand the variety and coverage of telecommunication services. As a result, 70% of the land area is now covered by fixed and or mobile telephones. The telephone penetration levels have increased from a dismal 0.26 per 100 inhabitants in 2001 to 10.34 per 100 inhabitants in 2006. Telecommunication services expansion is usually associated with increasing returns to scale due to the rapid rate of technological innovations in the sector, and lower input price inflation due to decreasing unit costs of processing, switching and transmission. From a regulatory (or policy) perspective, therefore, it is important to provide insights into how efficiently the major players in Uganda’s telecommunication industry have used the various inputs during the expansion process as well as the drivers of the productivity patterns. After the introduction, the rest of this paper is organised as follows: Section 2 presents the major reforms that have taken place in the sector during the liberalisation era and draws out implications for total factor productivity growth and regulation. This is followed by a discussion of the total factor productivity growth measurement in Section 3. The methodology of the study is presented in Section 4 followed by the empirical results in Section 5. The paper ends with concluding remarks and policy implications in Section 6.

This study employed input and output data to empirically measure total factor productivity (TFP) of the telecommunications industry in Uganda. An input oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) estimation technique was employed to measure the Malmquist total factor productivity indices for the telecommunication industry. A general specification encompassing all available input and output data was employed to obtain the average total factor productivity changes for the sector over the 2001–2006 period. The results show that the telecommunications sector posted impressive total factor productivity growth rates over the study sample. The average total factor productivity growth in the general model specification is 4.6%. These patterns are largely on the account of technological change as opposed to technical efficiency. The results indicate the existence of potential for tariff reduction via the X-factor in the price cap formula. This will ensure that consumers share in the productivity gains in the sector. However, this figure needs to be constantly monitored during the life span of the price cap.