IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/v41y1998i2p805-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spectrum Flash Dance: Eli Noam's Proposal for "Open Access" to Radio Waves

Author

Listed:
  • Hazlett, Thomas W

Abstract

As Ronald Coase posited in his famous article on the nature of the firm, there are situations in which decentralized markets are relatively efficient for coordinating economic activity, and situations in which they are not. With spectrum access, assigning property rights to clearly specified private owners is the socially efficient policy because the relevant transaction efficiencies will be internalized by competitive "spectrum owners" selecting to what degree rights should be subdivided and in what manner marketed. Where spot markets are optimal, an owner will maximize profits by using them; where long-term contracts are efficient, the owner will enter profitably into them. Hence, Eli Noam's solution--imposing open-access rules on bands of radio frequencies by government mandate--is a mistaken attempt to duplicate the efficiencies of markets by mandating a particular subset of market solutions. Such a policy predictably will result in underutilization of the spectrum resource. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • Hazlett, Thomas W, 1998. "Spectrum Flash Dance: Eli Noam's Proposal for "Open Access" to Radio Waves," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 805-820, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:41:y:1998:i:2:p:805-20
    DOI: 10.1086/467414
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467414
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/467414?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hazlett, Thomas W, 1998. "Assigning Property Rights to Radio Spectrum Users: Why Did FCC License Auctions Take 67 Years?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 529-575, October.
    2. Shelanski, Howard A & Huber, Peter W, 1998. "Administrative Creation of Property Rights to Radio Spectrum," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 581-607, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cao, Xiaoyong & Gong, Jiong, 2017. "The tradeoff of the commons under stochastic use," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 150-161.
    2. McAfee, R. Preston & Miller, Alan D., 2012. "The tradeoff of the commons," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 349-353.
    3. Fulvio Minervini & Diego Piacentino, 2007. "Spectrum Management and Regulation: Towards a Full-Fledged Market for Spectrum Bands?," Working Papers 07-2007, Macerata University, Department of Studies on Economic Development (DiSSE), revised Nov 2008.
    4. Freyens, Benoît, 2009. "A policy spectrum for spectrum economics," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 128-144, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jongwook Kim & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2002. "Resource-based and property rights perspectives on value creation: the case of oil field unitization," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4-5), pages 225-245.
    2. Robinson, Glen O, 1998. "Spectrum Property Law 101," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 609-625, October.
    3. Lawrence White, 2000. ""Propertyzing" the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Why It's Important, and How to Begin," Working Papers 00-08, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    4. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 2003. "Pluralism in Economics: A Public Good or a Public Bad?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-034/1, Tinbergen Institute, revised 18 May 2004.
    5. Wang Ning, 2018. "Law and the Economy: An Introduction to Coasian Law and Economics," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Harold Mulherin, J., 2007. "Measuring the costs and benefits of regulation: Conceptual issues in securities markets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 421-437, June.
    7. Peter Cramton, 2002. "Spectrum Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 01hte, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 16 Jul 2001.
    8. Saint, Martin & Brown, Timothy X, 2019. "A dynamic policy license for flexible spectrum management," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 23-37.
    9. Valentiny, Pál, 2018. "Coase-kép másképp: középpontban a közszolgáltatások [Coase otherwise: Public utilities]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(4), pages 346-381.
    10. Noam, Eli, 1998. "Spectrum Auctions: Yesterday's Heresy, Today's Orthodoxy, Tomorrow's Anachronism. Taking the Next Step to Open Spectrum Access," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 765-790, October.
    11. Faulhaber, Gerald R., 2006. "The future of wireless telecommunications: Spectrum as a critical resource," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 256-271, September.
    12. R. Preston McAfee & John McMillan, 1996. "Analyzing the Airwaves Auction," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 159-175, Winter.
    13. Hazlett, Thomas W. & Muñoz, Roberto E., 2009. "Spectrum allocation in Latin America: An economic analysis," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 261-278, November.
    14. Sarah Oh, 2020. "Radio “Fences” and Inventor Attention to Property Rights: Evidence from Wireless Patents," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 56(1), pages 37-72, February.
    15. Kuroda, Toshifumi & Baquero Forero, Maria del Pilar, 2017. "The effects of spectrum allocation mechanisms on market outcomes: Auctions vs beauty contests," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 341-354.
    16. Thomas W. Hazlett, 2008. "Property Rights and Wireless License Values," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(3), pages 563-598, August.
    17. Lueck, Dean & Miceli, Thomas J., 2007. "Property Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 183-257, Elsevier.
      • Dean Lueck & Thomas J. Miceli, 2004. "Property Law," Working papers 2004-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    18. Cave, Martin, 2013. "Extending competition in network industries: Can input markets circumvent the need for an administered access regime?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 82-92.
    19. Shelanski, Howard A & Huber, Peter W, 1998. "Administrative Creation of Property Rights to Radio Spectrum," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 581-607, October.
    20. David Clayton, 2004. "The consumption of radio broadcast technologies in Hong Kong, c.1930–1960," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 57(4), pages 691-726, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:41:y:1998:i:2:p:805-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.