Weak Versus Strong Net Neutrality

Joshua Gans

No 20160, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper provides a framework to classify and evaluate the impact of net neutrality regulations on the allocation of consumer attention and the distribution of surplus between consumers, ISPs and content providers. While the model provided largely nests other contributions in the literature, here the focus is on including direct payments from consumers to content providers. With this additional price it is demonstrated that the type of net neutrality regulation (i.e., weak versus strong net neutrality) matters for such regulations to have real effects. In addition, we provide support for the notion that strong net neutrality may stimulate content provider investment while the model concludes that there is unlikely to be any negative impact from such regulation on ISP investment. Counter to many claims, it is argued here that ISP competition may not be a substitute for net neutrality regulation in bringing about these effects

JEL-codes: D04 D42 D43 K2 L1 L12 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ict and nep-net
Note: IO PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Joshua Gans, 2015. "Weak versus strong net neutrality," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 183-200, April.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w20160.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Weak versus strong net neutrality (2015)
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:nbr:nberwo:20160

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w20160

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().