George Ford

Public debate over artificial intelligence ranges between visions of mass labor displacement to the technology being overhyped—from substance to spectacle. Using Wave 119 of the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, I document a large spread between how workers assess AI’s impact on others and on themselves: nearly three-in-four workers are concerned about workers generally but only one-in-three translate that worry into personal concern, less than half.

The Federal Communications Commission collects annual data on broadband prices through its Urban Rate Survey, covering a wide range of speed tiers and providers across urban markets. In the right analytical hands, the data offer an opportunity to track broadband prices over time. Yet, price is only one measure of market performance. Experience indicates that the quality of broadband service—typically measured by download speeds—consistently improves over time.

This Policy Bulletin evaluates claims that Chattanooga’s EPB municipal broadband network generated large employment gains in Hamilton County (TN). First, this Bulletin shows that the source paper invoked to justify the employment narrative explicitly finds no statistically significant employment effects in urban counties; Hamilton County is an urban county. Second, using modern causal inference methods, this Bulletin directly evaluates labor-market outcomes in Hamilton County. Across employment and unemployment outcomes, no economically or statistically significant effects are found.

Affordability has emerged as a defining political issue of the moment, and broadband internet service affordability is no exception—especially with the expiration of low-income broadband subsidy programs such as the Affordable Connectivity Program in 2024. Policymakers and advocates frequently cite current broadband prices as evidence that affordability challenges are worsening, justifying calls for expanded subsidies and regulatory intervention. But are broadband prices actually rising?

The Federal Communications Commission’s Section 706 Reports are a useful source for information on broadband deployment, even if largely used by Democratic administrations to justify regulation. Armed now with the new broadband fabric data, which attempt to measure broadband availability down to the location level, the FCC’s staff is faced with some new complexities. Summary statistics provided in the Report require linking the finely-tuned broadband data to population statistics.

The rapid emergence of artificial intelligence technologies has prompted a familiar regulatory response: in the absence of a cohesive federal framework, states are rushing in to fill the void with a patchwork of local initiatives. But while some may argue that this patchwork is a noble fulfilment of federalism, the economics nonetheless argue for these state laws to be preempted and replaced with a single federal framework. We first looked at this problem back in 2008 when we published a paper entitled Developing a National Wireless Regulatory Framework: A Law and Economics Approach.

Although the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was intended to ensure that broadband was available to low-income households, logic should also dictate that free broadband would increase broadband adoption (i.e., bring in new broadband users). Using (one-year) data on adoption from the annual American Community Survey (“ACS”) in years 2019 (before the ACP and its predecessor the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program starting in 2021, or “EBB”) and 2023, I estimate by regression the number of new broadband connections per ACP subscription. Should adoption subsidies be abandoned?

Broadband Internet connectivity is seen by many to be essential for modern life, not only because of the significant private benefits to its users, but also because of the alleged sizable social payoff—a “broadband bonus” above and beyond the purely private benefits of the service.

A common argument for government-owned municipal broadband networks (GONs) is that they will bring much-needed competition to incumbent providers. Yet broadband is an expensive business, and an increasingly competitive one as new technologies emerge. Municipal entry into fixed broadband services requires significant investments and sustained losses, and for a GON these losses must be covered involuntarily—in most cases, by constituents rather than investors.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided over $42 billion in subsidies for broadband deployment via the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. Although BEAD funds are supposed to be disbursed on a technology-neutral basis, the Biden Administration mandated a preference for fiber deployment, even when alternative technologies—including satellite broadband—are the more efficient mechanism to serve certain high-cost areas. With the recent election of President Donald Trump to the presidency, the government’s preference for fiber now faces significant uncertainty.