While the the use of markets to make new spectrum allocation decisions is becoming increasingly common in policy circles, such initial allocations are only that—initial allocations. The ability of market mechanisms to ensure that resources remain in their most highly valued use requires not only that these initial allocations be properly conducted, but also that secondary markets be well functioning. And though this is well understood in principle, the practice of secondary spectrum markets has been less well studied. In this paper, we have made an initial effort to understand the underlying principles of such secondary markets and the evolving policies toward secondary spectrum markets. We have also taken first steps toward quantifying important dimensions of the secondary spectrum markets. With this initial effort in hand, it is perhaps possible to begin to fashion policies that better enable the growth and development of these markets, and, more generally, the use ability of wireless technologies that rely upon this spectrum.
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Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute, a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. He is an economist with expertise in industrial organization and public policy, and his research focuses on competition, regulation, telecommunications, the economics of digitization, and technology policy. He was the economics director for the FCC's National Broadband Plan and has been a lecturer in Stanford University's public policy program, director of communications policy studies and senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a senior fellow at the AEI–Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an economist at the World Bank, and a staff economist at the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers. He holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University.
