The influence of regulations on the efficiency of telecommunications operators: A meta-frontier analysis

The telecommunications industry has a great ripple effect on the overall national economy. However, there is no consensus about what is the optimal regulation policy for the telecommunications industry. Regulations on the telecommunications industry are different by region (i.e. United States, European Union and Asia). A number of studies have been conducted on comparative efficiency analysis for different policies that apply stochastic frontier analysis or data envelope analysis. However, these comparative studies are inappropriate because the production functions for each region are not identical. Thus, this paper addresses meta-frontier methodology, which can reflect differences in production functions. The results indicate that the United States has the highest meta-frontier efficiency in contrast to previous research findings.