Dimensions: 5.5'' x 8.5'' 55 pages AEI Press  (Washington) Publication Date: August 1999 Paperback ISBN: 0844771406 Price: $ 9.95 Add to Cart   Examination Copies

Network industries comprise a large sector of the U.S. economy. They include telecommunications systems, electric utilities, pipelines, sewage systems, road and highway systems, refuse pickup systems, airline computer reservation systems, bank automated teller machine systems, credit and debit card systems, bank check and payment clearance systems, local real estate brokers' multiple listing services, and the Internet. Those industries have long been a concern of public policy.

In this volume, White shows that the public policy concerns are not accidental, because such industries often embody two major and widely recognized forms of potential market failure: significant economies of scale--with the potential for monopoly--and externalities. Nevertheless, he notes, the American economy has experienced and continues to experience substantial efficiency losses from ill-conceived and ill-executed restrictions on competition and misguided pricing that characterize the regulatory regimes or government operation of many network industries.

Lawrence J. White is the Arthur E. Imperatore Professor of Economics at New York University's Stern School of Business.