In most countries, wireless communications rely on administrative allocation of radio spectrum. The inefficiencies associated with this centralized approach have led economists, starting with Coase in 1959, to suggest 'propertyzing' radio spectrum. Critics of this approach assert that property...

The U.S. has spent over $25 billion to subsidize computer access in schools since the 1996 Telecommunications Act on the rationale that broadband Internet usage improves learning. In 2013, President Barack Obama directed that, based on the successful experience of a school district in North...

Are U.S. digital markets advancing, or threatening, the American economy? There is keen interest in the answer to this question. Sweeping changes have disrupted society courtesy of the Information Revolution, presenting great opportunities in radically transformed economic markets but also great...

Like elsewhere in the developing world, wireless markets now play a crucial role in Latin American economic growth. Mobile telephone networks increasingly provide the communications infrastructure that has largely been lacking throughout the region. Yet, governments have generally made only...

The effects of antitrust policy are illuminated in an extensive series of enforcement actions against Microsoft. As antitrust intervention promises to benefit a broad spectrum of publicly traded firms, stock market reactions to enforcement quot;eventsquot; constitute forecasts of the net...

The U.S. telecommunications industry has come under scrutiny amid concerns that regulatory policies have been too permissive. These concerns are perhaps most prominent in the residential broadband market where there is a perception that the “duopoly” between telephone carriers (DSL...

Strategic investments by wireless carriers and others are generating rapid development of the “mobile ecology,” increasing modularity even while embracing and extending vertical controls. Coordination among complementary asset owners and simultaneous rivalry among platforms suggests that the...

Horizontal merger evaluation is heavily reliant on market definition. While a SSNIP framework formats the analysis, demand elasticity evidence used to apply the test is often sparse, as is often found in high-technology industries. This paper examines other sources of evidence that reveal the...

Economic analysis of spectrum allocation policies focuses on competitive bidding for wireless licenses. Auctions generating high bids, as in Germany and the UK, are identified as successful, while those producing lower receipts, as in Switzerland and the Netherlands, are deemed fiascoes. Yet,...