This paper examines the factors that affect the uptake of broadband in the residential and SME markets. We searched the economics literature on diffusion theory and identified five different models that potentially provide insights into the broadband phenomenon. These models were applied to the...

Using an efficiency-based framework this paper analyses the performance of New Zealand's telecommunications sector under competition law-based sector governance (the period from 1987 to 2001) and under industry-specific regulation (2001 to 2007). The framework considers the productive allocative...

Local loop unbundling has been widely promulgated by policy-makers as a significant factor stimulating broadband uptake and therefore an essential component of a developing 'information economy'. Whilst empirical evidence is sparse and at best equivocal in respect of a consistent positive and...

Bronwyn Howell recently attended the International Telecommunications Society Asia-Pacific conference held in Taipei Taiwan on 26-28 June 2011. A copy of her presentation is attached.

Fast internet access is widely considered to be a productivity-enhancing factor. However despite promises of substantial gains from its deployment the evidence from recent empirical studies sugests that the productivity gains may not be as large as originally hypothesised. If substantiated these...

Structural separation between network and retail functions is increasingly being mandated in the telecommunications sector to countervail the market power of incumbent operators. Experience of separation in the electricity sector offers insights for telecommunications. Despite apparent...

A popularly-held tenet in health economics is that as a consequence of the presence of insurance subsidies for treatment costs health care markets differ so significantly from hypothetical 'perfect competition' that competition and antitrust laws possibly should not be enforced in health care...

Bronwyn Howell presented 'The Theory of the Firm: New Insights on Cooperatives and Non Profit Organisisations' at the LEANZ Study Day, Wellington June 2012.

Recent weeks have seen considerable controversy regarding the government's decision to unbundle the local loop. First Bronwyn Howell's select committee submission criticised the robustness of the analysis underpinning the unbundling decision suggesting that the case for both greater broadband...

Both the Australian and New Zealand governments have committed to spend substantial sums in order to bring forward the nationwide deployment of ultra-fast fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband networks. With deployment proceeding apace two significant questions have arisen regarding the economic...