About the Information Economy Project

Where Law & Economics Meets Telecommunications Policy

Introduction

Public policy in the Information Economy is central to the health of the global economy, invokes fundamental free speech issues, and determines how our basic social and economic institutions are shaped.

Already, a debate about the nature of the Internet rages: Will information technology drive an economic realignment to a post-capitalist "commons," or are today's disruptive technologies an example of the market's ability to harness creative destruction through property rights?

Created in 2005 with support from the George Mason University School of Law and the George Mason University Foundation, the Information Economy Project is growing rapidly. It looks forward to expanding its research programs to tackle and ever-wider array of public policy issues.

Cutting-Edge Research

The Information Economy Project brings the rigor of law & economics to issues of vast social significance.

Wide-Ranging Output

The work of the Information Economy Project sits at the intersection of academic research and public policy. Unlike many think tanks or policy groups, the scholarly research of the Information Economy Project is peer-reviewed and academically based. The Project's conferences and lectures tap prominent thinkers in the Information Economy.

Its research enterprise assists established experts and promising young scholars analyzing the most challenging regulatory questions of our day. In addition to publishing studies in leading economics journals, law reviews, and policy forums, the Information Economy Project reaches beyond academic audiences, placing essays in such popular outlest as Barron's, The Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Emerging As A World-Class Research Institution

Published research already spans broadband regulation, spectrum allocation, high-tech merger policy, and more.

A Commitment to Law & Economics Scholarship

A young economist from Beijing contacted George Mason University in June 2006. Zhong Liu, then a Ph.D. candidate at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University, wanted to conduct telecommunications policy research at a leading academic institution.

Through the Information Economy Project, Dr. Zhong received a post-doctoral fellowship in 2006-2007, evaluating the bundling of handsets and wireless telephone service. Some assert that carrier phone subsidies limit consumer choices.

Dr. Zhong's research compared prices and usage across mobile markets, finding performance metrics relatively depressed where bundling was prohibited. Such empirical evaluation, injecting marketplace evidence into global public policy debates, is what the Information Economy Project seeks to achieve.