TY  - JOUR
AU  - Greenstein, Shane
TI  - Economic Experiments and Neutrality in Internet Access
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13158
PY  - 2007
Y2  - June 2007
DO  - 10.3386/w13158
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13158
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13158.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Shane Greenstein
Technology Operation and Management
Morgan Hall 439
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
Tel: 617/384-7472
E-Mail: sgreenstein@hbs.edu
M1  - published as Shane Greenstein. "Economic Experiments and Neutrality in Internet Access," in Adam B. Jaffe, Josh Lerner and Scott Stern, editors, "Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 8" University of Chicago Press (2007)

M3  - presented at "Innovation Policy and the Economy", April 12, 2007
AB  - Economic experiments yield lessons to firms that can be acquired only through market experience. Economic experiments cannot take place in a laboratory; scientists, engineers, or marketing executives cannot distill equivalent lessons from simply building a prototype or interviewing potential customers and vendors. The historical record illustrates that economic experiments were important for value creation in Internet access markets. In general, industry-wide returns from economic experiments exceed private returns, with several important exceptions. Those conclusions motivate an inquiry into whether regulatory policy can play a role in fostering the creation of value. The net neutrality debate is reinterpreted through this lens. A three part test is proposed for encouraging economic experiments from both broadband carriers and providers of complementary services.
ER  -