The purpose of patent policy is to balance the incentive to invent against the ability of the economy to utilize and incorporate new inventions and innovations. Substandard patents that upset this balance impose deadweight losses and other costs on the economy. In this Policy Paper, we examine...

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...

The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) have launched a coordinated campaign to convince both policymakers and stakeholders that their financial woes are attributable to Congressionally-mandated Federal Communications Commission policies necessary to open local telecoms markets to...

An analysis of investment by telecommunications firms before and after the 1996 Telecommunications Act reveals substantial increases in the level of investment and capital stock for this sector following the enactment of this important legislation. There is no evidence that the 1996 Act reduced...

Each $1 million change in the regulatory budget is associated with a change of about four regulator jobs. With our new update, we now find that a 10% cut in the regulatory budget results in a loss of 21,756 regulatory jobs. Given the average jobs impact of 3 million jobs over the five-year...

In this article, we provide a focused economic analysis of the welfare effect of state and local regulation on communications services and, in particular, on the wireless segment of the telecommunications industry. We find that when local regulation in one jurisdiction has sufficiently large...

Over the past twenty years we have seen the emergence of an important phenomenon in the practice of modern regulation — cooperative bargaining between the regulator and the regulated over a “bundle” of seemingly unrelated issues. Because of the multiplicity of issues being adjudicated...

When the Internet was in its nascency, the Federal Communications Commission rejected calls to impose traditional "common carrier" regulation designed for a monopoly telephone world. Instead, the agency classified broadband Internet access as an "information service" under Title I of the...

Today, a patchwork of regulation applies to the rates, terms, and conditions cable and telephone companies pay for access to poles, ducts, and conduits. Concerned about the differences in pole attachment rates paid by communications carriers, the Federal Communications Commission ('FCC') is...

In this paper, we consider the argument that Carterfone-type rules are required in response to mobile operators' use of term contracts, early termination fees, and allegedly restrictive handset certification and support policies. First, we show that such practices by mobile operators are...