IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sip/dpaper/06-004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Policy Analysis and the Internet: Coming to Terms with a Telecommunications Anomaly

Author

Listed:
  • Paul A. David

    (Department of Economics, Stanford University)

Abstract

The significant set of public policy issues for economic analysis that arise from the tensions between the ‘special benefits’ of the Internet as a platform for innovation, and the drawbacks of the “anomalous” features of the Internet viewed as simply one among the array of telecommunications systems, is the focus of discussion in this chapter. Economists concerned with industrial organization and regulation (including antitrust and merger law) initially found new scope for application of their expertise in conventional policy analyses of the Internet’s interactions with other segments of the telecommunications sector (broadcast and cable television, radio and telephone), and emphasized the potential congestion problems posed by user anonymity and flat rate pricing. Policy issues of a more dynamic kind have subsequently come to the fore. These involve classic tradeoffs between greater efficiency and producer and consumer surpluses today, and a potential for more innovation in Web-based products and service in the future. Many such tradeoffs involve choices such as that between policies that would preserve the original ‘end-to-end’ design of the original Internet architecture, and those that would be more encouraging of market-driven deployment of new technologies that afforded ISPs with greater market power the opportunity to offer (and extract greater profits from) restricted-Web services that consumers valued highly, such as secure and private VOIP.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul A. David, 2006. "Economic Policy Analysis and the Internet: Coming to Terms with a Telecommunications Anomaly," Discussion Papers 06-004, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:06-004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/repec/sip/06-004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Varian,Hal R. & Farrell,Joseph & Shapiro,Carl, 2004. "The Economics of Information Technology," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844154.
    2. Mackie-Mason, J.K. & Varian, H.R., 1993. "Pricing the Internet," Memorandum 1993_020, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    3. Milton L. Mueller, 2002. "Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262134128, April.
    4. Andrew Graham, 2001. "The Assessment: Economics of the Internet," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 17(2), pages 145-158, Summer.
    5. Farrell, Joseph & Saloner, Garth, 1986. "Installed Base and Compatibility: Innovation, Product Preannouncements, and Predation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 940-955, December.
    6. Michel Mandjes, 2004. "Pricing Strategies and Service Differentiation," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 59-81, April.
    7. MacKie-Mason, J.K. & Varian, H.L., 1993. "Some Economists of the Internet," Papers 93-16, Michigan - Center for Research on Economic & Social Theory.
    8. Oecd, 2006. "Policy Considerations of VoIP," OECD Digital Economy Papers 109, OECD Publishing.
    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. Gilroy, Bernard Michael & Vollpert, Tobias, 1999. "Zukunftsperspektiven betriebswirtschaftlicher Forschung im Bereich der Internetökonomie [Future perspectives of economic research in the context of internet economics]," MPRA Paper 21086, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Uwe Deichmann & Aparajita Goyal & Deepak Mishra, 2016. "Will digital technologies transform agriculture in developing countries?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(S1), pages 21-33, November.
    3. Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason & Hal Varian, 1994. "Economic FAQs About the Internet," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 75-96, Summer.
    4. christoph Engel, 2005. "Voice over IP. Competition Policy and Regulation," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2005_26, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    5. Leonhard Dobusch & Elke Schüßler, 2013. "Theorizing path dependence: a review of positive feedback mechanisms in technology markets, regional clusters, and organizations," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 22(3), pages 617-647, June.
    6. Seungjin Han, 2003. "An Efficient Mechanism for Differentiated Quality of Internet Service," Department of Economics Working Papers 2003-05, McMaster University.
    7. Ioanna D. Constantiou & Nikolaos A. Mylonopoulos, 2002. "Towards Sustainable Quality Of Service In Interconnection," Game Theory and Information 0207004, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Sep 2002.
    8. Xuemeng Zhao & Weilun Huang, 2024. "Global Geopolitical Changes and New/Renewable Energy Game," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-27, August.
    9. Thomas M. Lenard & Lawrence J. White,, 2009. "ICANN at a Crossroads: A Proposal for Better Governance and Performance," Working Papers 09-07, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    10. Beomjin Choi & T. S. Raghu & Ajay Vinzé & Kevin J. Dooley, 2019. "Effectiveness of standards consortia: Social network perspectives," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 405-416, April.
    11. Chakravorti Sujit, 2003. "Theory of Credit Card Networks: A Survey of the Literature," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 1-19, June.
    12. Antonio Estache & Marco Manacorda & Tommaso M. Valletti, 2002. "Telecommunications Reform, Access Regulation, and Internet Adoption in Latin America," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 153-218, January.
    13. Narine Badasyan & Subhadip Chakrabarti, 2003. "Private Peering Among Internet Backbone Providers," Industrial Organization 0301002, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Jan 2003.
    14. Nicola Gennaioli & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2015. "Optimally vague contracts and the law," Economics Working Papers 1410, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2017.
    15. Slowak, André P., 2009. "Market fields structure & dynamics in industrial automation," FZID Discussion Papers 02-2009, University of Hohenheim, Center for Research on Innovation and Services (FZID).
    16. Dietrich, Antje-Mareike, 2016. "Governmental platform intermediation to promote alternative fuel vehicles," Economics Department Working Paper Series 16, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Economics Department.
    17. Mileva, Elitza & Siegfried, Nikolaus, 2012. "Oil market structure, network effects and the choice of currency for oil invoicing," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 385-394.
    18. Giovanna Devetag & Enrico Zaninotto, 2001. "The imperfect hiding: Some introductory concepts and preliminary issues on modularity," ROCK Working Papers 010, Department of Computer and Management Sciences, University of Trento, Italy, revised 13 Jun 2008.
    19. William H. Sandholm, 2005. "Negative Externalities and Evolutionary Implementation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 885-915.
    20. Vladimir I. Soloviev & Natalia A. Iliina & Marina V. Samoyavcheva, 2009. "Cournot Equilibrium In A Model Of Hardware And Software Manufacturers' Interaction," Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, Faculty of Sciences, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, vol. 1(11), pages 1-4.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public policy; telecommunications; Web-based products; user anonymity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L38 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Public Policy
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sip:dpaper:06-004. 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: Anne Shor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cestaus.html .

    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.