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"Singer, Hal J"
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Addressing the Power Imbalance: A Legislative Proposal for Effectuating Competitive Payments from Platforms to Newspapers
The purpose of this study is to explore the underpayment to newspapers from Facebook and Google attributable to the power imbalance between individual news publishers and the dominant platforms, and to describe how a pending bill in Congress—the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA)—could effectuate competitive payments to news publishers, effectively simulating a world in which the power imbalance is removed. Facebook and Google (the “dominant platforms”) appropriate the value added of news publishers generally—and newspapers specifically—by reframing articles in rich previews containing headlines, summaries, and photos; and by curating the content alongside advertisements. This reframing and curation decrease the likelihood of a user clicking into the article, thereby depriving news publishers of clicks while enriching the dominant tech platforms. By exploiting their monopsony power over newspapers, Facebook and Google effectively pay a price of zero for accessing and “crawling” the newspapers’ content. This study finds that allowing current market forces to dictate the newspapers’ “pay shares”—that is, the portion of platform revenues that redounds to newspaper publishers—ensures that newspapers are compensated at rates significantly below competitive levels. This underpayment results in underemployment of journalists and other news employees, as well as host of social ills associated with local news deserts, including less competent local governments, greater spread of partisanship and misinformation, removal of economic stimulus to local economies, and a reduction in the diversity of viewpoints, particularly among minority populations. The best way to correct this market failure is for the government to permit the news publishers (either newspapers alone, or all news publishers) to coordinate in their dealings with the digital platforms over payment terms and conditions, as contemplated in the JCPA.
Journal Article
Cable Modems and DSL: Broadband Internet Access for Residential Customers
Cable firms are positioned to dominate the broadband industry as they have dominated the delivery of multichannel video programming. With control of both the broadband content and the pipes, a large footprint encourages cable firms to discriminate against their unaffiliated content and conduit rivals. Regulators should subject any pending mergers to an open-access provision. The regulatory agencies should require vertically integrated cable firms to afford unaffiliated ISPs equal and nondiscriminatory access to the combined company's cable modem platform. Doing so will ensure that the incumbent cable provider does not evade the advent of open access, will promote investment, and will limit the cable firm's ability to engage in both conduit and content discrimination.
Journal Article
The Need For Greater Price Transparency In The Medical Device Industry: An Economic Analysis
Proposed legislation seeks to impose price transparency in the heath care industry as a remedy for increasing medical device prices. This paper analyzes previous attempts to mandate similar price-disclosure rules in a variety of industries. We identify the economic conditions under which mandatory price disclosure is likely to generate substantial benefits and costs. Applying these conditions, we conclude that mandatory price disclosure for implantable devices is unlikely to pass a benefit-cost test. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Journal Article
Avoiding rent-seeking in secondary market spectrum transactions
Since at least the early 1990s, policymakers have recognized the benefits of using market-based mechanisms to allocate spectrum usage rights, including relying on auctions to award spectrum licenses and, more importantly, allowing secondary markets to reallocate licenses among existing uses and licensees. One of the benefits of market-based approaches is that they reduce incentives for parties to expend lobbying resources to secure self-serving outcomes, i.e., to engage in rent-seeking. This article assesses the role of rent-seeking in secondary market transactions over the past decade, and concludes that rent-seeking is commonplace in large transactions despite secondary market reforms implemented by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2003-2004. The FCC's unlimited discretion to intervene on behalf of rivals induces the rent-seeking behavior that the authors document. The article concludes that if this discretion is curbed competitors will reallocate their resources to more productive affairs.
Journal Article
Assessing competition in U.S. wireless markets: review of the FCC's competition reports
The FCC's 14th and 15th Annual Wireless Competition reports review a wide variety of evidence, both direct (how firms and customers behave) and indirect (industry concentration measures) in making its competitive assessment. The reports are silent on how to interpret this evidence. In contrast, modern antitrust analysis relies far more on direct evidence. In failing to put more weight on the relevant direct market evidence to reach an informed competitive assessment, the 14th and 15th reports invite erroneous conclusions about the state of competition in wireless markets. The authors are concerned that these erroneous conclusions eventually could adversely influence regulatory policy in wireless markets. Before economists came to rely on direct measures of market power, they relied on indirect measures, such as market share in the relevant markets, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (\"HHI\"), and market definitions. The 14th and 15th reports downplayed direct evidence of competition--namely, aggressive pricing behavior, robust entry, and continued long-term reductions in price, all of which strongly support a conclusion of \"effective competition.\" Instead, the FCC focuses on inferences of market power based on market shares. To test the FCC's presumed relationship between market structure and prices in the wireless industry, the authors analyzed the TNS Telecoms database of cellular telephone bills. The authors found no statistically significant relationship between a household's monthly wireless bill and the HHI of the economic area in which the household resides. Thus, market concentration does not appear to have an impact on what the customer actually pays. This finding, along with the fact that wireless prices have declined over time as industry concentration has increased, undermines the structure-conduct hypothesis that undergirds the FCC's market-share analysis.
Journal Article
FCC rule repeal won't kill privacy protections
A Feb. 20 blog post by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in defense of the FCC's rules begins with a breathtaking subtitle: \"Cable and telephone companies are pushing Congress to make it illegal for the federal government to protect online consumer privacy.\" EFF has argued that a recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision stripped the FTC of its \"authority to penalize cable and telephone companies if they deceive their customers, meaning the FCC is the only broadband consumer protection agency.\" [...]under California law, non-financial businesses, including ISPs, are required to disclose to customers, in writing or by email, the types of personal information sold to a third party for direct marketing purposes.
Journal Article
Econometric tests for analyzing common impact
Abstract
In antitrust class-action litigation, courts are increasingly unlikely to accept the presumption that all class members were harmed by price-fixing among a group of firms or by exclusionary behavior by a single firm. Econometric methods typically applied in antitrust and other settings estimate the average effect of the challenged conduct, but do not inform impact for individual class members. We present classwide econometric methods and statistical tests for detecting the existence (or lack thereof) of common impact and determining what proportion (if any) of the proposed class suffered injury in many class actions. We conclude that econometric tools can meaningfully inform the legal process, even when courts demand proof of common impact.
Book Chapter
Do Unbundling Policies Discourage CLEC Facilities-Based Investment
An expanding economics literature has examined the theoretical linkages between mandatory unbundling in the telecommunications sector and the incentives to invest in facilities by both incumbent local carriers and competitive carriers. Recent empirical evidence that substantiates the theory has emerged. That literature documents CLECs’ reluctance to make facilities-based investments instead of availing themselves of incumbents’ UNEs at low regulated prices that are based on total element long-run incremental costs (TELRIC). By examining the variation in facilities-based investment in loops across U.S. states and over time, we find that facilities-based line growth relative to UNE growth was faster in states where the cost of UNEs was higher relative to the cost of facilities-based investment.
Journal Article