The central irony of the Economists’ Hour is that in criticizing the influence of economists over policy, Appelbaum engages in a great deal of economic speculation himself. Appelbaum would discard the opinions of economists in favor of “the lessons of history,” but all he is left with is unsupported economic reasoning.

Advanced broadband networks are hot topics, but little attention is paid to the critical investments in infrastructure necessary to make these networks a reality. The FCC’s proposed 621 Order is an important measure to help providers deploy high speed broadband across a fragmented municipal regulatory environment.

ICLE submitted comments to the FCC on the First Amendment implications of the leased access rules. Associate Director, Legal Research Ben Sperry argued the changes in the video marketplace towards competition undercut the justification for subjecting regulation of cable operators' speech to only intermediate scrutiny.

In this ex parte letter, ICLE analyzes the law and economics of both the underlying statute and the FCC's proposed rulemaking that would affect the interpretation of cable franchise fees. For a variety of reasons set forth in the letter, we believe that the Commission is on firm legal and economic footing to adopt its proposed Order.  Congress intentionally enacted the five percent revenue cap to prevent LFAs from relying on cable franchise fees as an unlimited general revenue source. In order to maintain the proper incentives for network buildout — which are ever more-critical as our economy increasingly relies on high-speed broadband networks — the Commission should adopt the proposed Order.

In a remarkable ruling issued earlier this month, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held in Oberdorf v. Amazon that, under Pennsylvania products liability law, Amazon could be found liable for a third party vendor’s sale of a defective product via Amazon Marketplace.

Despite the simplistic narrative tying President Trump’s vision of the world to conservatism, there is nothing conservative about his views on the First Amendment and how it applies to social media companies.

This morning a diverse group of more than 75 academics, scholars, and civil society organizations — including ICLE and several of its academic affiliates — published a set of seven “Principles for Lawmakers” on liability for user-generated content online, aimed at guiding discussions around potential amendments to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

This Essay takes prior work on Chevron in a new direction, arguing that broad deference doctrines have the largely unrecognized but particularly pernicious effect of increasing the political gridlock and politicization of the legislative process.