The current push for bandwidth caps, tiered usage pricing, and other measures in both wireless and wireline communications is usually justified by invoking the specter of “bandwidth hogs” consuming an unfair share of the transmission capacity and being subsidized by the bulk of the users....

We investigate the existence and implications of competitive equilibria when two firms offer the same electronic goods under different pricing policies. One charges a fixed subscription fee per period; the other charges on a per-use basis. Two models are examined when firms' marginal costs are...

The routes of early railways around the world were generally inefficient because the prevailing doctrine of the time called for concentrating on provision of fast service between major cities and neglect of local traffic. Modern planners rely on methods such as the "gravity models of spatial...

Gullibility is the principal cause of bubbles. Investors and the general public get snared by a "beautiful illusion" and throw caution to the wind. Attempts to identify and control bubbles are complicated by the fact that the authorities who might naturally be expected to take action have often...

A wide-ranging discussion of the evolution of pricing in early transportation industries, such as lighthouses, canals, and turnpikes, is presented. It shows that price discrimination was an important factor in the development of those industries, and tended to intensify with time. In order to...

Walter Bagehot is remembered today primarily as a proponent of the doctrine of lender of last resort, in which central banks pump money into the economy to ameliorate the damage from a financial crisis. But none of the growing number of publications about him appear to investigate in depth...

Network neutrality as such may fade from public interest discussions, but historical precedents going back for centuries argue that the underlying issues will continue to be debated. Those issues revolve around the basic tension between efficiency and fairness in markets, a tension that has...

Discussions of the economics of scholarly communication are usually devoted to Open Access, rising journal prices, publisher profits, and boycotts. That ignores what seems a much more important development in this market. Publishers, through the oft-reviled "Big Deal" packages, are providing...