Equilibrium Research On ICT Industry In The Context Of Price Regulation

In recent years,5G mobile telecommunication networks and 1000Mbit/s optical networks have been deployed more rapidly under the guidance of new generation ICT technologies.As a result of infrastructure improvement and upgrading of telecommunication networks,data traffic is more and more closely related to all works of life,and digital economy is undergoing the transformation from consumer Internet to industrial Internet.In this process,there is a dramatic increase of industrial big data arising from network connection of numerous devices;there are higher requirements on network transmission services from various economic sectors resulting from a rapid increase of data traffic;and the price level of telecommunication networks has begun to play an increasingly important role in the economic system.To resolve the conflicts between data traffic requirements and network access costs for production enterprises,the Chinese government has introduced the policy of "higher speed and lower price" in a timely manner with the expectation of lowering the threshold of digital upgrading.However,since this policy was implemented,there have been different judgments on its actual effects from all works of life.In particular,there have been few research achievements in this respect from the academic community.This situation can be largely attributed to lack of a scientific and comprehensive evaluation method to perform systematic research and build industry consensus on the social benefits of this policy.With increased popularity at the production side,network traffic has become a new factor of production,which both affects the production activities of various industrial sectors to a greater extent and is affected by the products and services of relevant sectors.Therefore,price research on network traffic is already beyond the scope of partial equilibrium,and should be conducted in the framework of a big economy with multiple mutually-dependent and inter-related sectors,that is,in the status of general equilibrium in economic sense.In the existing literature of economic research on the ICT industry,there are many research achievements,but their commonly-used research method is the input-output method,which is a simplified application of the theory of general equilibrium.The linear function relationship formulas in the input-output method cannot be used to study the changes in relative inputs cased by the changes in relative prices,and thus cannot be used to analyze the spillover effects created by price policies.By contrast,computable general equilibrium modeling has become an important analysis tool of mainstream economists for various economic policies thanks to its broader research perspective and more complex non-linear function models.Therefore,this paper serves to break various limits posed by the input-output method on the current economic research on the ICT industry and build a research framework based on the theory of general equilibrium so as to make a comprehensive analysis on the impacts of network traffic price reduction on other production sectors and the economic system,and conduct further research on the synergy effects of multiple simultaneous supporting measures.First,the conduction mechanism of network traffic price reduction of telecommunication networks to the economic system and relevant industrial sectors is analyzed from the perspectives of macro-economics and micro-economics;the role of infrastructure building of telecommunication networks is discussed in a systematic manner with respect to the conversion of new and old kinetic energy and the building of digital economy;and the research achievements of the academic community in this respect is summarized.Second,the first social accounting matrix in relation to ICT services is established for the research on digital economy.A large-scale social accounting matrix including the accounts for 21 industrial sectors and 24 final products is compiled by combing the relevant data in the input-output tables(149 categories)for year 2017 from the National Bureau of Statistics and the year books on communications and finance of China.In this matrix,the ICT services are divided into four types of services,that is,fixed network transmission services,mobile network transmission services,network value added services and voice services,which quite objectively reflects the current situation,and provides supporting data for policy simulation through computable general equilibrium modeling.Third,a computable general equilibrium model for network traffic price(NTP-CGE model)is established.This model is based on a five-layer nested structure,comprising production module,price module,trade module,mechanism module and closure module.The relevant data is input into the social accounting matrix through professional software GAMS,the unknown parameters contained in various functions of these modules are obtained,and the correctness of this model is verified.Fourth,simulation analysis is conducted for the the policy of lower network traffic price.The impacts of broadband network price adjustments on 21 production sectors in the social accounting matrix is examined through the GCE model,and the simulation structure is evaluated.First,price reductions are configured for three types of services,that is,fixed network transmission services,mobile network transmission services and network value added services,and the pulling effects on the output value of each production sector and the GDP are examined in the context of price regulation measures for network transmission services for 21 production sectors.Then,the micro-economic and macro-economic impacts are examined in the context of coordinated price reduction measures for network transmission services plus network value added services,and the simulation results are analyzed.Fifth,multiple-source policy synergy is simulated for price regulation measures on telecommunication networks.The synergy effects of inter-department coordinated fiscal subsidy policies on relevant industrial sectors and the national economic system is simulated through the NTP-CGE model.The fiscal subsides can be divided into two types,that is,direct investment and preferential tax treatment;and two scenarios are designed for each type,that is,separate implementation of fiscal subsidy and coordinated implementation of fiscal subsidy and price regulation.Finally,the joint impacts of technical progress and network traffic price reduction on digital upgrading are studied,which provides reference for an analysis of the policy effects of price reduction.