DO COMMON CARRIAGE, SPECIAL INFRASTRUCTURE, AND GENERAL PURPOSE TECHNOLOGY RATIONALES JUSTIFY REGULATING COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS?

Mark A. Jamison and Janice A. Hauge

Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 2014, vol. 10, issue 2, 475-493

Abstract: We address whether regulation of communications networks remains warranted. We use the concepts of public utility, common carrier, special infrastructure, and general purpose technologies to analyze this question, as such concepts typically are invoked as foundations for continued regulation of communications networks. We examine the historical development of the public utility and common carrier concepts and find that the essential features of these constructs largely do not fit communications networks today and for the foreseeable future. More recent frameworks for economic regulation also do not fit. Communications networks are not special infrastructure because they do not exhibit zero marginal costs over an appreciable range of demand and do not exhibit a differentiating amount of social demand. Communications networks appear to satisfy the conditions for general purpose technologies, but the features of these technologies that would compel economic regulation, primarily the presence of significant externalities, are lacking.

JEL-codes: K23 L12 L13 L16 L51 L90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jcomle:v:10:y:2014:i:2:p:475-493.

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Journal of Competition Law and Economics is currently edited by Nicholas Economides, Amelia Fletcher, Michal Gal, Damien Geradin, Ioannis Lianos and Tommaso Valletti

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