The international telecommunications imbalances : an empirical analysis

This article investigates different determinants of telecommunications traffic imbalances between outgoing and incoming international traffic flow among 24 worldwide countries. The methodological approach followed in the article deals with the implementation of an econometric model that estimates the impact of both macroeconomic and telecommunications-specific variables on international traffic imbalances. The empirical investigation conducts to two main results: (a) it shows the relevance of political and economic manoeuvres influencing macroeconomic indicators; (b) it focuses on the role of telecommunications-specific variables in increasing or decreasing traffic imbalance. These results can be referred to as economic and regulation aspects of telecommunications.