Net Neutrality and Online Innovation: An Empirical Study of the UK

Laura Nurski

Review of Network Economics, 2022, vol. 21, issue 4, 171-209

Abstract: How does a fast lane on the internet affect the entry of online content providers? To answer this question, I provide empirical evidence that connection speed greatly influences consumption of online video and that changes in speed therefore directly impact the entry of video content providers. I also present a framework to think about the incentives of broadband providers to offer a fast lane with access fees which has direct profits effects as well as indirect demand effects. Finally, by combining the empirical model with the theoretical framework in a counterfactual analysis, I show that a fast lane with access fees only increases entry for content providers with high fixed costs of content provision. Using a novel data set on household consumption of online content and broadband penetration in local markets to estimate a structural model of industry demand and supply, this paper is the first to provide empirical evidence on the industry-wide effects of breaking net neutrality.

Keywords: net neutrality; innovation; internet (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L42 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/rne-2023-0063 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:rneart:v:21:y:2022:i:4:p:171-209:n:3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/rne/html

DOI: 10.1515/rne-2023-0063

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Network Economics is currently edited by Lukasz Grzybowski

More articles in Review of Network Economics from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().