The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. BUSINESS
The Justice Department approves the merger of AT&T and BellSouth Corp., leaving the decision of the Federal Communications Commission as the final regulatory barrier.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on how we could have a communications marketplace without the FCC:
“A next generation communications policy must distinguish economic regulation from social welfare initiatives. Congress should eliminate rules that regulate market performance and focus on ways to implement social policy—such as universal service—in ways that do not require FCC oversight. Finally, Congress should restructure the FCC and provide a legislative mandate to increase the market’s role in managing spectrum rights. The FCC of the future (if it is to exist at all) should be limited to applying general unfair competition rules similar to that of the Federal Trade Commission.”
2. ECONOMICS
Columbia University professor Edmund Phelps wins the Nobel Prize in Economics.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Economic Policy Fellow John Berlau on the significance of Phelps’ work:
“His research of the past decade on the importance of entrepreneurship to economic growth is just what policymakers need to focus on. Phelps has unabashedly championed features of the American model such as venture capital and stock options. His research also shines a light on the long-term damage Sarbanes-Oxley and other mandates on public companies could do to American prosperity.”
3. TECHNOLOGY
Proposals to regulate “net neutrality” are back on the agenda of the Federal Communication Commission this week.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Analyst Peter Suderman on how net neutrality regulations could stunt the growth of new video services online:
“The HD-on-demand future of the net is going to arrive far less quickly (and probably in some stunted form) should proponents of Net Neutrality legislation get their way. Interestingly, Google has been on of the prime backers of such legislation, presumably out a belief that it will either 1) not prohibit tech development but simply shuck some of the cost of new tech onto customers (customers will, of course, pay anyway, but Net Neutrality will make those costs higher and make development of high-priority services far more difficult) or 2) a belief that allowing ISPs to block some websites (which is possible but unlikely to occur under a non NN regime) will cut into their business as the king of the search portals.”
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