This book describes the transformation of telecommunications from national network monopolies to a new system, the network of networks, and the glue that holds it together, interconnection. By their very nature, monopoly-owned networks provided a small number of standardized, nationwide...

Regulatory reform had its beginnings in the United States in the 1970s, and today it is taking place around the globe. One of the central questions for industrial policy is how to regulate firms with market power. Regulatory Reform tackles this important policy issue in two parts: it describes...

Internet telephony is the integration and convergence of voice and data networks, services, and applications. The rapidly developing technology can convert analog voice input to digital data, send it over available networked channels, and then convert it back to voice output. Traditional...

In Competition in Telecommunications, Jean-Jacques Laffont and Jean Tirole analyze regulatory reform and the emergence of competition in network industries using the state-of-the-art theoretical tools of industrial organization, political economy, and the economics of incentives. The book opens...

In 2000 and 2001, several European countries carried out auctions for third generation technologies or universal mobile telephone services (UMTS) communication licenses. These "spectrum auctions" inaugurated yet another era in an industry that has already been transformed by a combination of...

Digital technology has dramatically changed the structure of many industrial sectors. The rise of the Internet and increased broadband access have given rise to new business models and strategies for firms dealing with both electronic and physical goods. Industrial Organization and the Digital...

From its first glimmerings in the 1950s, the software industry has evolved to become the fourth largest industrial sector of the US economy. Starting with a handful of software contractors who produced specialized programs for the few existing machines, the industry grew to include producers of...

The rapid growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web is transforming the way information is accessed and used. New models for distributing, sharing, linking, and marketing information are appearing. This volume examines emerging economic and business models for global publishing and...

The economics of knowledge is a rapidly emerging subdiscipline of economics that has never before been given the comprehensive and cohesive treatment found in this book. Dominique Foray analyzes the deep conceptual and structural transformation of our economic activities that has led to a...