Reports
The Economic Value of Property Rights Concepts in Spectrum, Both With and Without Licenses
harold_furchtgott_roth
harold_furchtgott_roth
Senior Fellow and Director, Center for the Economics of the Internet
(John Lamb/Getty Images)
Caption
(John Lamb/Getty Images)

If concepts of property rights in licensed spectrum contribute substantially to economic value of applications of that spectrum, it would stand to reason that spectrum with lesser or even no property rights would have applications with lesser economic value. A natural economic experiment follows: is licensed spectrum associated with higher economic value and higher valued applications than spectrum without licenses?

Licensed spectrum has enormous economic value in the United States. But, importantly, as we will see in this report, spectrum without licenses has large and rapidly growing value.