IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/evoice/v12y2015i1p13-18n1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Economy of Net Neutrality Regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Weisman Dennis L.

    (Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Kansas State University, Emeritus, Waters Hall, RM 327, Manhattan, KS 66506-4001, USA)

Abstract

On February 26, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed sweeping new regulation for broadband providers. While regulation is typically driven by a combination of economic and political considerations, this article argues that the FCC’s initiative is long on politics and short on economics. For example, the FCC is not able to identify a non-transitory abuse of market power by broadband providers to justify its actions. There is no evidence of excessive returns being earned by broadband providers and the violations of net neutrality that the Commission can point to, including throttling and blocking of data, are conspicuously few in number. What is more, the FCC has yet to establish that the regulatory oversight it proposes would not stifle more investment than it stimulates. Broadband is an example of a two-sided market in which edge (content) providers represent one side of the market and consumers represent the other side of the market. Just as newspapers impose positive prices on both advertisers and subscribers, it is (quite generally) efficient in two-sided markets for both sides of the market to contribute to the total price. Two-sided markets are characterized by a seesaw principle in which a lower price on one side of the market tends to give rise to a higher price on the other side of the market. Hence, a ban on paid prioritization of traffic delivery over broadband networks essentially requires consumers to pay the full freight. The FCC is therefore in the unenviable position of having to justify a policy to regulate broadband that is distinguished by being both economically inefficient and socially inequitable. While the courts are disposed to give deference to expert federal agencies under the Chevron Doctrine, the lack of economic foundation to justify broadband regulation promises to make this tough sledding for the FCC. The strategy on the part of the broadband providers will be to run out the clock with litigation in the hope that the political winds shift in their favor post 2016.

Suggested Citation

  • Weisman Dennis L., 2015. "The Political Economy of Net Neutrality Regulation," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 13-18, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:evoice:v:12:y:2015:i:1:p:13-18:n:1
    DOI: 10.1515/ev-2015-0003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/ev-2015-0003
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/ev-2015-0003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Hazlett & Dennis Weisman, 2011. "Market Power in US Broadband Services," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 38(2), pages 151-171, March.
    2. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    3. Weisman Dennis L, 2010. "Optimal Price Allocations in Two-Sided Markets," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 1-10, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jabbour, Chady & Rey-Valette, Hélène & Maurel, Pierre & Salles, Jean-Michel, 2019. "Spatial data infrastructure management: A two-sided market approach for strategic reflections," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 69-82.
    2. Dennis Weisman & Soheil Nadimi, 2019. "A note on price regulation in two-sided markets," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(4), pages 2766-2777.
    3. Carbó-Valverde Santiago & Liñares-Zegarra José Manuel & Rodríguez-Fernández Francisco, 2012. "Feedback Loop Effects in Payment Card Markets: Empirical Evidence," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 1-24, June.
    4. Lucas A. Mariani & Jose Renato Haas Ornelas & Bernardo Ricca, 2023. "Banks’ Physical Footprint and Financial Technology Adoption," Working Papers Series 576, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    5. Estelle Malavolti, 2016. "Single Till or Dual Till at airports: a Two-Sided Market Analysis," Post-Print hal-01406372, HAL.
    6. D'Annunzio, Anna & Russo, Antonio, 2015. "Net Neutrality and internet fragmentation: The role of online advertising," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 30-47.
    7. Lam, W., 2015. "Switching Costs in Two-sided Markets," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015024, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. Fumiko Hayashi, 2009. "Do U.S. consumers really benefit from payment card rewards?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 94(Q I), pages 37-63.
    9. Amelio, Andrea & Giardino-Karlinger, Liliane & Valletti, Tommaso, 2020. "Exclusionary pricing in two-sided markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    10. Renato Gomes & Alessandro Pavan, 2013. "Cross-Subsidization and Matching Design," Discussion Papers 1559, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    11. Magnus Willesson, 2009. "Pricing of card payment services in Scandinavian banking," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 387-399, March.
    12. Alexandre de Corniere, 2013. "Search Advertising," Economics Series Working Papers 649, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    13. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2011. "Pricing in Retail Payment Systems: A Public Policy Perspective on Pricing of Payment Cards," DNB Working Papers 331, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    14. Dietrich, Antje-Mareike, 2016. "Governmental platform intermediation to promote alternative fuel vehicles," Economics Department Working Paper Series 16, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Economics Department.
    15. Bolt, Wilko & Tieman, Alexander F., 2008. "Heavily skewed pricing in two-sided markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1250-1255, September.
    16. Amel Attour & Pierre Barbaroux, 2015. "Le rôle des processus de connaissances dans le cycle de vie d'un écosystème d'affaires," Post-Print halshs-01244401, HAL.
    17. Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose L. & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2011. "Comparison sites," IESE Research Papers D/933, IESE Business School.
      • Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2011. "Comparison Sites," Working Papers 2011-04, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    18. Bach Quang Ho & Yuki Inoue, 2020. "Driving Network Externalities in Education for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-16, October.
    19. Cinzia Battistella & Gianluca Murgia & Fabio Nonino, 2021. "Free-driven web-based business models," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 445-486, June.
    20. Koray Caliskan, 2022. "The Elephant in the Dark: A New Framework for Cryptocurrency Taxation and Exchange Platform Regulation in the US," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-18, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:evoice:v:12:y:2015:i:1:p:13-18:n:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.