Applications such as iMessage, KakaoTalk, LINE, Signal, Skype, Snapchat, Threema, Viber, WhatsApp and WeChat have become an increasingly popular means of personal and business interaction. Surprisingly little academic effort has gone into understanding the nature and origin of these...

This paper analyses how different types of access regulation to next generation networks affect investments and consumer welfare. The model consists of an investment stage with uncertain returns and subsequent quantity competition. The access price is a function of investment costs and the...

One important concern for the upcoming and highly-complex voluntary incentive auctions for broadcast television spectrum is the degree to which the largest mobile wireless providers will be allowed to participate. Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice encouraged the Federal Communications...

Transmission networks are crucial for gas wholesale markets. In the past, the individual networks of transmission system operators (TSOs) determined market areas in the European Union, but driven by the prospect of higher liquidity in the wholesale market, welfare gains for society as well as...

In response to a request for comment from the Federal Trade Commission, this report is divided into three parts:• The FTC's continuing leadership in consumer protection for Internet access• Competition and consumer protection in a changing communications industry• Competition and consumer...

Energy products such as power, gas, and oil have long been the world's premier commodities. Consumers demand that power and fuel are available when they want it and they prefer to pay less for it. Few know or care where their fuel or power comes from. So for years energy companies believed that...

The European Commission's proposed payments card legislation and the common position reached by the European Parliament in April 2014 will harm competition, innovation, and consumers if broadly endorsed by the European Council in the coming months. The interchange fee price caps will soften...

The rise of the platform economy has been the subject of celebration and critique. Platform companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Postmates have been rightfully celebrated as positively disruptive, introducing much–needed competition in industries that have been otherwise over–mature and...

Our paper seeks to define the term effective competition as used in Mexico’s telecommunications sector and implemented through two main regulatory tools: the determination of preponderance and the subsequent imposition of asymmetric measures. To lift, modify or deepen these measures, we argue,...