Often, an economist’s role in public policy is to explain obvious things that for some reason are being missed. This includes simple truths such as these: only a monopoly can have monopoly power, regulations should not outlive their purpose, and pushing prices below commercial levels generally decreases investment. These economic lessons could assist the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the “special access” proceeding, in which the agency is being lobbied by resellers to extend existing price-cap regulations from TDM-based services (on copper connections) to IP-based services (on fiber connections).

Read “The cost of regulating special access: A 55 percent investment decrease” on AEI.