ADAM CANDEUB, Michigan State University College of Law
Email: candeub@law.msu.edu
BRENDAN MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM, U.S. Naval Academy
Email: bcunning@usna.edu
PETER J. ALEXANDER, Federal Communications Commission
Email: peter.alexander@fcc.gov

Motivated, in part, by the new "rule of law" paradigm in development economics, we examine the role of institutions, broadly defined, on the rate of mobile network build-out. We find that the "strict" rule of law (i.e., strong protection of private contract and property) does not exhibit a statistically significant relationship with mobile network growth. More macro-level regulatory policies, however, ranging from lower tariffs, modest import controls, and lower levels of foreign ownership restriction are significant positive correlates of network growth. These findings suggest that a non-democratic regime with a "correct" set of regulatory policies might experience substantial network growth, relative to the international average - without providing strong "classical" protections of private contract and property rights. In addition, we find that corruption and state capture correlate significantly and negatively with mobile network growth. Plausibly, state capture and corruption increase the cost of doing business and these higher costs may slow growth, or preclude it altogether. Finally, examining cultural determinants of network growth, we find that our coefficient on language fractionalization is negative and significant, which implies that nations with greater language diversity experience slower network growth. Plausibly then, network growth in a numerically large, but linguistically heterogeneous, population may be smaller than predicted absent this consideration. Finally, we observe that real GDP per capita is positive and significant, a finding shared with multiple studies exploring growth rates of mobile networks, and economic development more generally.

TIM WU, Columbia University - Columbia Law School
Email: wu@pobox.com
DEREK SLATER, Google, Inc.
Email: dslater@google.com

America's communications infrastructure is stuck at a copper wall. For the vast majority of homes, copper wires remain the principal means of getting broadband services. The deployment of fiber optic connections to the home would enable exponentially faster connections, and few dispute that upgrading to more robust infrastructure is essential to America's economic growth. However, the costs of such an upgrade are daunting for private sector firms and even for governments. These facts add up to a public policy challenge.

Our intuition is that an innovative model holds unrealized promise: household investments in fiber. Consumers may one day purchase and own fiber connections that run from their homes. They would then be able to connect to a variety of service providers, including today's Internet, television, and telephone services, as well as ultra-bandwidth intensive services of the future. Consumers would have the opportunity not only to get a fast broadband connection, but also benefit from greater competition and lower prices in the retail service market.

MICHAEL C. MINEIRO, McGill University Faculty of Law
Email: michael.mineiro@mail.mcgill.ca

In recent years the United States has experienced a surge in interest in commercial spaceports. States are passing innovative laws to support the development of commercial spaceports in their territory. Airports are being converted into spaceports to serve reusable launch vehicles. Private investors are funding the construction of spaceport facilities to serve commercial human space flight participants.

Whether to advise a private customer, a corporate executive, or a legislative body, this new found interest and investment in spaceports creates new demand for legal counsel versed in United States law and regulation governing commercial spaceports. To that end, this paper assesses the law and regulation of commercial spaceports in the United States.

This assessment begins with an overview of spaceports, the history of their development in the United States, and an examination of commercial spaceports currently licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thereafter, relevant provisions of Corpus Juris Spatialis are identified and assessed for their application to commercial spaceport activities in the United States. United States federal and state laws governing commercial spaceport activities are examined with special consideration given to licensing, liability, and commercial spaceport initiatives. Recommendations are given on how spaceports can legally limit their liability exposure. Other legal issues, such as the operation of international spaceports are also discussed. Finally, recommendations are given to law and policy makers for legal and regulatory reforms to better facilitate commercial spaceport development and operation.

LIYANG HOU, ICRI-KULeuven-IBBT
Email: liyang.hou@law.kuleuven.be

The three criteria test to define new relevant markets is widely considered to contribute to the development of the EU electronic communications regulation. However, the application of this test has not been fully explored. This paper first examines the application the three criteria test based on the European Commission's Recommendation on relevant markets, the European Regulators Group's Report on Guidance on the application of the three criteria test and the European Commission's decisions under Article 7 of the Framework Directive. Then, it reveals two negative consequences caused by the legal uncertainties related to the three criteria test: (1) the first and the second criteria can be easily evaded by national regulatory authorities and (2) the third criterion cannot be analysed on a case-by-case basis. In order to make the three criteria functional, it finally suggests several proposals.

GIJSBERT ZWART, CPB Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis, Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC)
Email: g.t.j.zwart@cpb.nl

The European natural gas market is characterized by declining indigenous resources, particularly in the UK and the Netherlands, and a growing dependence on a small number of large exporters who, as a consequence, see their market power increasing. In this paper we analyze long-run scenarios for the European natural gas markets in a model, NATGAS, that explicitly includes both factors, resource constraints and producers' market power. Finite resources lead to interdependencies of current production decisions and future opportunities. These decisions in turn depend on the potential for large producers to set market prices above marginal costs. We analyze the impact of conditions on the global LNG market on market shares of pipeline gas suppliers, as well as on the speed of depletion of indigenous European resources. We focus on how shadow prices of resource constraints affect substitution patterns in the various scenarios.