Estimating the Impact of Low-Income Universal Service Programs

Daniel A. Ackerberg, David R. DeRemer, M. Riordan, Gregory L. Rosston, Bradley S. Wimmer
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引用次数: 19

Abstract

This policy study uses U.S. Census microdata to evaluate how subsidies for universal telephone service vary in their impact across low-income racial groups, gender, age, and home ownership. Our demand specification includes both the subsidized monthly price (Lifeline program) and the subsidized initial connection price (Linkup program) for local telephone service. Our quasi-maximum likelihood estimation controls for location differences and instruments for price endogeneity. The microdata allow us to estimate the effects of demographics on both elasticities of telephone penetration and the level of telephone penetration. Based on our preferred estimates, the subsidy programs increased aggregate penetration by 6.1% for households below the poverty line. Our results suggest that automatic enrollment programs are important and that Linkup is more cost-effective than Lifeline, which calls into question a recent FCC (2012) decision to reduce Linkup subsidies in favor of Lifeline. Our study can inform the evaluation of similar universal service policies for Internet access.
估计低收入普遍服务项目的影响
这项政策研究使用美国人口普查的微观数据来评估普遍电话服务补贴在低收入种族群体、性别、年龄和住房所有权方面的影响是如何变化的。我们的需求规格包括本地电话服务的每月补贴价格(生命线计划)和补贴初始连接价格(Linkup计划)。我们的准最大似然估计控制了位置差异和价格内生性工具。微观数据使我们能够估计人口统计对电话普及率弹性和电话普及率水平的影响。根据我们的首选估计,补贴计划使贫困线以下家庭的总渗透率提高了6.1%。我们的研究结果表明,自动注册计划很重要,Linkup比Lifeline更具成本效益,这就对最近FCC(2012)减少Linkup补贴以支持Lifeline的决定提出了质疑。我们的研究可以为类似的互联网接入通用服务政策的评估提供参考。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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