Estimating Telephone Demand with State Decennial Census Data from 1970–1990: Update with 2000 Data

Adding the 2000 decennial census data to our pooled logit model results in much stronger evidence that targeted subsidy programs to add poor households to the network are ineffective and very costly. Untargeted programs are about nine times more expensive than targeted programs. Overall higher penetration rates are fueled by the declining real price of access and rapid income growth in the 1990s. In addition, our estimate of the first integrated access and new services model with 2000 decennial census data suggests that cell phones and Internet are, in part, responsible for the recent surge in penetration, but precise estimates are difficult without price information.