The “ladder of investment†is a regulatory approach proposed by Cave (2006), which has been widely embraced by national regulatory authorities in the European telecommunications sector. The approach entails providing entrants, successively, with different levels of access—the...

Most digital goods have a modular design; that is, they consist of complementary and distinct building blocks, called modules. Modular product design, in contrast to integrated (or integral) design, enables alteration of a specific module that is usually assigned for a specific function without...

In this paper, we first provide a simple framework for cooperation in product development between competitors. We put forward the tradeoff between the benefits obtained through development cost sharing and the cost of intensified competition due to reduced product differentiation, which implies...

In this paper, we consider an unregulated incumbent who owns a broadband infrastructure and decides on how much access to provide to a potential entrant. The level of access, i.e., the network elements that are shared in the provision of competing broadband services, not only determines the...

We provide a dynamic model to study how the presence of the option to "buy" the incumbent local exchange carrier's (ILEC) facilities via local loop unbundling affects the competitive local exchange carriers' (CLECs) incentives to "build" alternative infrastructures. We show that an unregulated...

The "ladder of investment" is a regulatory approach proposed by Cave (2006), which has been widely embraced by national regulatory authorities in the European telecommunications sector. The approach entails providing entrants, successively, with different levels of access--the "rungs" of the...

This paper aims to introduce issues that relate regulation and innovation in the telecommunications industry. We try to address the following question: which types of regulatory schemes are likely to promote innovation in a fast-growing telecommunications industry? Section 2 analyses ex ante...

In this paper, we consider an unregulated incumbent who owns a broadband infrastructure and decides on how much access to provide to a potential entrant. The level of access, i.e., the network elements that are shared in the provision of competing broadband services, not only determines the...