This paper examines the justifications, history, and practice of regulation in the US telecommunications sector. We examine the impact of technological and regulatory change on market structure and business strategy. Among others, we discuss the emergence and decline of the telecom bubble, the...

This paper evaluates the incentive of firms to vertically integrate in a simple 2X2 Bertrand model of two substitutes that are each comprised of two complementary components. It confirms that all prices fall as a result of a vertical merger. Further, we find that, when the composite goods are...

The vast majority of US residential consumers face a monopoly or duopoly in broadband Internet access. Up to now, the Internet was characterized by a regime of “net neutrality” where there was no discrimination in the price of a transmitted information packet based on the identities of...

This paper analyzes the effects on the implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ("Act") on US telecommunications markets and is based on my forthcoming book with the same title. The Act is a milestone in the history of telecommunications in the United States. Coming 12 years after...

Non-uniform pricing equilibria are shown to dominate uniform pricing equilibria in free entry, monopolistically competitive markets with identical consumers. The non- uniform pricing equilibrium is welfare optimal. Comparisons of Cournot and non-uniform pricing equilibria in terms of the...

This paper critiques some of the properties of the so-called quot;efficient component pricing rulequot; (ECPR) for access to a bottleneck (monopoly) facility. When a rival and the bottleneck monopolist both produce a complementary component to the bottleneck service, the ECPR specifies that the...

We analyze the equilibrium size of networks under alternative market structures. Networks are characterized by positive size externalities (commonly called quot;network externalitiesquot;). That is, the benefits of the addition of an extra node (or an extra customer) exceed the private benefits...

We show that, despite coordination in the quality level of the components that they provide, independent vertically-related (disintegrated) monopolists will provide products of lower quality level than a sole integrated monopolist. Further, the integrated monopolist achieves higher market...