Regulators have long been aware of the social aspects of communication. In the past, regulated monopolists have provided Universal Service Obligations, typically funded via a systeme of cross-subsidies. In this paper, we first review the rationale for imposing Universal Service Obligations,...

This paper considers a vertically separated industry with an upstream monopolist who supplies an essential input to two downstream Cournot firms. This situation is relevant to a number of sectors, including the telecommunications industry where trunk operators must have access to the local...