Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Shovel-ready broadband stimulus
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 14:50:51 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks) Date: May 10, 2009 10:17:34 AM EDT To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Re: Shovel-ready broadband stimulus [Note: This comment comes from friend Tom Hazlett. DLH] From: Thomas Hazlett <twhazlett () gmail com> Date: May 8, 2009 8:43:11 AM PDT To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com> Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] Re: Shovel-ready broadband stimulus Hi Dewayne- Thanks for posting my FT.com piece. A quick response to Bob, if you'd care to distribute:In fact, economists are well aware of the fact that not all problems are best suited to resolution by auction. Ronald Coase wrote a famous 1937 paper which launched a general inquiry as to why some activities are undertaken more efficiently within the firm than via use of "the price system" -- i.e., auctions. Many others have investigated how property rights are efficiently awarded and, in many cases, show competitive bidding to not be the superior system. My research ("The Rationality of U.S. Regulation of the Broadcast Spectrum," J Law & Econ [April 1990]) specifically criticizes Coase's paper on the FCC where he argued that auctions should have been used in the 1920s to distribute radio broadcasting rights. That ignored the more efficient path that had actually been adopted (and was then pre-empted in the 1927 Radio Act), priority-in-use rights.
But auctions are highly socially advantageous across a large class of cases. The reason why reverse auctions make eminent sense in spending so-called broadband stimulus monies is that they force performance criteria to be explicitly established and then generate information as to the most economical path. The former imposes transparency, reducing political gamesmanship; the latter saves taxpayer funds.
What's not to like? Thomas Hazlett
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com > wrote:[Note: This comment comes from friend Bob Frankston. DLH] From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com> Date: May 7, 2009 9:08:55 AM PDT To: <dave () farber net> Cc: "'Dewayne Hendricks'" <dewayne () warpspeed com> Subject: RE: [IP] Shovel-ready broadband stimulusWhy am I not surprised that economists claim that they can solve any problem by holding an auction according to rules they define? And bureaucrats say they can act as soon as they get measurements (even if they are meaningless)? And same-old business just see another revenue source. We’ve seen this show before and we’re in reruns.I’d like to shift the focus to liberating the value in the infrastructure rather than leaving it locked into the same-old “value chain” we call telecom services.
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- Shovel-ready broadband stimulus David Farber (May 07)
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- Re: Shovel-ready broadband stimulus David Farber (May 11)