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...

Competition between parallel infrastructures incorporates opposing welfare effects. The gain from reduced deadweight loss might be out- weighed by the inefficient duplication of an existing infrastructure. Using data from broadband internet access for Western Europe 2000-2004, this paper...

The purpose of this Policy Paper is to examine empirically the relative impact that a regulatory mandate like network neutrality would have on high-cost areas and to compare that relative burden to lower-cost urban areas. We find areas that are, on average, high-cost could be disproportionately...

Whether it was the intended strategy or not, Google Fiber, which has now "paused" new deployments, agitated incumbent providers, regulators, and investors to change their approach and policies on gig-speed Internet, initiating a "game of Gigs" that broke a stalemate in investments in...

We examine the extent to which the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order prevents anti-competitive and discriminatory pricing. We show that by refraining from regulating interconnection agreements and by allowing Internet service providers to engage in "zero rating," the...

In this Article, we investigate the tax issues and challenges facing Uber and Lyft drivers by studying their online interactions in three internet discussion forums. Using descriptive statistics and content analysis, we examine (1) the substantive tax concerns facing forum participants, (2) how...

As digitization and packet switching revolutionize communications networks, American communications law faces a dilemma: How can it reconcile an old law that contains distinct regulatory structures for telephony, broadcasting, cable television, and satellites, and that leaves Internet Protocol...

In this Policy Paper, we analyze the effects of quot;network neutralityquot; proposals that seek to mandate an inflexible set of rules that would foreclose or severely limit many market transactions. Our model reveals that under plausible conditions, rules that prohibit efficient commercial...

The paper analyses the economics behind algorithmic search and recommender services, based upon personalized user data. Such services play a paramount role for online services such as marketplaces (e.g. Amazon), audio streaming (e.g. Spotify), video streaming (e.g. Netflix, YouTube), app stores,...