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112. New World, New Realities: The Remaining Roles of Government in International Telecommunications
- Author:
- Rob Frieden
- Publication Date:
- 01-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- New World,New Realities Much has changed in the international telecommunications environment since 1995, when the Aspen Institute convened the first annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on International Telecommunications (AIRIT): The Internet has reached critical mass, with credible forecasts that data communications soon will predominate over voice services for the first time; Internet-mediated telephone service has begun to challenge the traditional toll revenue-sharing arrangements and pricing systems based on voice services; Regional and global market opening trade initiatives have become a reality; Strategic industrial alliances have grown in importance as carriers strive to exploit new market access opportunities; and Deregulation and market liberalization have become more widespread in developed and developing nations alike.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
113. International Cooperation and the Logic of Networks: Europe and the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)
- Author:
- David Bach
- Publication Date:
- 06-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
- Abstract:
- Contrary to the United States, the European Union (EU) has established a single technical standard for second generation wireless telecommunications. The successful creation of the pan-European digital standard GSM is of utmost industrial significance. It has provided Europe's equipment manufacturing industry with a market large enough to exploit economies of scale and has thus enabled European manufacturers to become world leaders in the mobile communications industry. Given the centrality and crucial importance of wireless technology for the emerging information society and digital economy, the story of the establishment of GSM is of interest to anybody studying the growth and trajectory of digital technology and its commercial applications. After all, the nature of digital economies implies that control over network evolution translates into control over the architecture of the digital marketplace, as François Bar has argued. Hence, control of and influence over network evolution has global economic ramifications. In addition, however, the political process that enabled GSM featured pivotal supranational leadership in the form of European Commission initiatives in a domain that has traditionally been dominated by national players. Grasping standard setting in the case of GSM thus also contributes to an understanding of the changing governance patterns of the European economy and consequently is of interest to anybody concerned with issues of European integration as a whole.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
114. The Place of the Defense Industry in National Systems of Innovation
- Author:
- Kenneth Flamm, Ann Markusen, Judith Reppy, John Lovering, Claude Serfati, Andrew D. James, Eugene Cobble, Judith Sedaitis, Corinna-Barbara Francis, Dov Dvir, Asher Tishler, and Etel Solingen
- Publication Date:
- 04-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
- Abstract:
- A review of current and forthcoming developments in the European defense industry (which here means mainly Britain, France, Germany, and Italy) would lead, I believe, to some fairly clear conclusions. The relationship between sectoral and national (including regional) economic development is changing profoundly. This is above all because the defense industry currently represents a major and extremely significant instance of globalization. However, this is not the kind of globalization described in many summaries.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Economics, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, China, United Kingdom, Middle East, and France
115. Corporate Welfare for Weapons Makers the Hidden Costs of Spending on Defense and Foreign Aid
- Author:
- William D. Hartung
- Publication Date:
- 08-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- The defense and foreign aid budgets are the largest single source of government funding for private corporations. More than half of U.S. weapons sales are now being financed by taxpayers instead of foreign arms purchasers. During fiscal year 1996 (the last year for which full statistics are available), the government spent more than $7.9 billion to help U.S. companies secure just over $12 billion in agreements for new international arms sales. The annual $7.9 billion in subsidies includes taxpayer-backed loans, grants, and government promotional activities that help U.S. weapons makers sell their products to foreign customers. Also, the provision of low-cost facilities and extensive subsidies for research and development and mergers and acquisitions to major contractors fosters a “risk-free” environment in which weapons makers have little economic incentive to produce effective systems at affordable prices. Furthermore, a portion of the $120 billion the Pentagon spends each year on contracts with U.S. defense contractors is being wasted on defense pork—that is, redundant or unneeded weapons systems. Such subsidies and spending for defense pork can interfere with the fulfillment of legitimate security needs.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Climate Change, Government, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States
116. The Internet and Global Telecommunications: Exploring the Boundaries of International Coordination
- Author:
- Michael J. Kleeman
- Publication Date:
- 01-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- The Internet is a driving force in global communications and commerce; as such, issues related to its governance and growth have broad implications that reach beyond those of traditional telecommunications services or networks. Unlike prior communications networks that carried primarily voice traffic, the Internet collects and distributes content and facilitates global and local/national commerce— which raises two types of questions: What purposes does the network serve for users? What barriers prevent or constrain such use?
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
117. Toward Sustainable Competition in Global Telecommunications: From Principle to Practice
- Author:
- William J. Drake
- Publication Date:
- 01-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- Many observers consider 1998 to be a watershed year in the evolution of the global telecommunications industry. This view is based on the fact that two major changes in the international policy landscape have begun to clear away many longstanding barriers to competition in global networks and services.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States
118. Media Madness: The Revolution So Far
- Author:
- David Bollier and Max Frankel
- Publication Date:
- 01-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- Henry, for that generous introduction. I am proud to bear the title of Catto Fellow and if I were allowed to recite your biography as you have recited mine, you would know the source of my great pride. But like Harry Evans in a similar recent situation, (and now also his wife, Tina Brown), I am reminded of the New Yorker cartoon showing a partygoer being introduced at a cocktail party while enduring the urgent plea of a spouse: “Tell them who you WERE, dear. Tell them who you WERE!” I have to emphasize who I once was not only because I have retired from executive duties but also because the Revolution that I have come to discuss often regards me as passé, out of date, an expiring person of print—you know, that dying industry. That may be so. But the revolutionary “new” media are exhausting themselves parading their newness while actually betraying highly familiar symptoms of a very old media disease. We are all mad: just not newly mad.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States and New York
119. The Global Wave of Entrepreneurialism: Harnessing the Synergies of Personal Initiative, Digital Technologies, and Global Commerce
- Author:
- David Bollier
- Publication Date:
- 01-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- Future historians may call this period the entrepreneurial age. Rarely has such an explosion of new business ventures, technological innovation, and cultural experimentation swept across diverse cultures of the globe simultaneously. Government leaders in Beijing and Singapore, Warsaw and Caracas, Moscow and London are looking to business mavericks to energize their economies. Multinational companies are eager to instill entrepreneurial values within their workforces to boost their competitiveness. On the periphery of such power centers, meanwhile, entrepreneurs large and small are remaking entire sectors of the economy and creating high-tech boomtowns in San Jose, California; Bangalore, India; Cambridge, England; Austin, Texas; and many other places.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States, India, London, California, Moscow, England, Singapore, Bangalore, Austin, and Texas
120. Information Literacy: Advancing Opportunities for Learning in the Digital Age
- Author:
- Richard P. Adler
- Publication Date:
- 01-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- The foregoing paraphrase of Dickens was how one participant in the Aspen Institute's 1998 Forum on Communications and Society (FOCAS) summed up the current state and impact of the Internet. On one hand, the Internet has provided more people with more convenient access to more information in a shorter period of time than any other medium in history. It has given rise to an enormous burst of entrepreneurial activity that has led to the creation of an entire new industry in just a few years. Electronic commerce already is a multibillion dollar enterprise and will become even more important in the near future.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States