• Selected
• Entire List

Abstract:
In 1996 Congress passed the landmark Telecommunications Act (hereafter "the Act"). The Act, under Section 271, allowed the Regional Bell Operating Companies to offer long distance service to their local customers in exchange for opening their own local networks to local competitors in that state. Using a state-level panel data set we evaluate the effect of FCC Section 271 decisions on entry into the local telephone exchange market. OLS and Poisson estimates suggest that Section 271 approvals increase the number of local competitive entrants before and during the year the approval is granted. We obtain no statistically significant and robust results for the effects of Section 271 approval on entry during the following year. In addition, the estimates suggest that Section 271 denials have no statistically significant effect on the entry of local competitors.

Section 271, long-distance, telecommunications, deregulation, entry

Abstract:
This paper employs survival/duration analysis to determine how subscriber levels affect cable networks' survival probabilities. Using piecewise-constant hazards estimation, we find that an additional one million subscribers increases a cable network's probability of survival in a given year by 17%.

Cable, Media, Survival, Duration

Abstract:
This article examines the Federal Communication Commission's indecency regulation for television and radio. In recent years, the FCC has not only pursued high profile enforcements such as Janet Jackson's well-known Super Bowl half time show, but perhaps more important, has issued fines against broadcasters in record amounts totaling millions of dollars. Critics claim that these enforcements are politicized, arbitrary, and chilling of free speech.

This article proposes a new, market-based mechanism for indecency regulation that avoids the pitfalls of the FCC's current approach. The proposal focuses on the viewer-advertiser relationship, in distinction to the FCC's regulations, which concentrate solely on the broadcaster. Drawing on recent economic theory involving two sided markets, we argue that if the FCC required disclosure of all the programming that advertisers sponsor, consumers could more efficiently pressure advertisers directly, resulting in programs that better reflect community standards of indecency.

Federal Communications Commission, broadcast regulation, indecency

Abstract:
The unitary executive theory - that the Constitution gives the President complete control over the executive branch - questions the constitutionality of independent agencies. The debate surrounding this theory involves competing policy arguments. Unitarians tend to see independent agencies as partisan tools of congressional aggrandizement which sap executive energy and diminish democratic accountability. Non-unitarians see independence as enabling professionalized bureaucratic decision-making or furthering deliberative democratic goals.

We test these claims using the results from a unique, comprehensive database of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voting. We find neither lock-step partisanship or vise-like Chair (or proxy presidential) control. Decision making at the FCC occurs largely by consensus with unanimous orders constituting over 91% of the 8252 in our database. When predicting the likelihood to dissent, however, commissioner's individual tendency to dissent (as measured by examining conditional probabilities derived from logistic regressions) has a greater effect than party affiliation. We interpret this finding as showing that commissioners pursue individual agendas, not the President's or Congress's as an institution. The unitarians, therefore, underestimate the extent to which independent agencies frustrate democratic accountability.

Most significant, micro-institutional features determine agency outcomes and mediate any congressional or executive influence. In particular, the way commissioners are chosen and the organizational structures in which they operate strongly affect partisanship, i.e., party-line voting. The FCC produced more partisan outcomes when, in the late 1990s, the commissioner nomination and confirmation process became more partisan. When the FCC changed in 1982 from a seven to five-commissioner body, there was a decrease in commissioners' tendency to dissent

Empirical Legal Studies, Administrative Law, Federal Communications Commission, Unitary Executive

Abstract:
We employ a unique data set of 41,137 commissioner votes in 8,252 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decisions and orders, reflecting every voted commission decision from 1976-2003, in order to examine those factors that determined commissioner voting at the FCC. We discover a cyclical relationship between commissioner party-line voting and the presidential election. We hypothesize a partisanship effect, tied to the presidential election cycle, which works separately from commissioners' ideological preferences.

Administrative Law, Independent Agencies, FCC, Empirical Legal Research

Abstract:
Mate-seekers avoid mates who may impose significant externalities on themselves and/or future children. Using data from an internet dating service, we find that male daters who report wanting children are 61% to 97% less likely to accept a smoking partner. Female daters who report wanting children are 15% to 79% less likely to accept a smoking partner. Female daters who have children living with them are 30%-99% less likely to accept a smoking partner. Male daters who want children avoid smoking partners apparently to avoid personal externalities, while female daters avoid smoking partners apparently out of concern for current and future children.

Externalities, mating, smoking, family, internet

Abstract:
We use a unique and comprehensive data set spanning 32,515 individual Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioners' votes over 27 years to estimate FCC commissioner preferences. Employing Multinomial Logit and Multinomial Probit choice models, we estimate FCC commissioners' preferences over different vote choices. According to multinomial logit results, idiosyncratic commissioner preferences are far important than party affiliation in determining commissioner votes. Multinomial probit results indicate that the vote choices concur and dissent are close substitutes of each other.

Federal Communications Commission, independent agency, communications law, administrative law, empirical legal studies