Resumen de The rationality of U.S. Regulation of the broadcast spectrum in the 1934 communications act

homas W. Hazlett

• The Federal Radio Commission regulated radio broadcasting, 1927�1934. With the passage of the Communications Act of 1934, the 1927 Radio Act (enabling the Commission) was re-enacted in whole. This congressional endorsement yields key evidence as to what policy outcomes were intended, differentiating competing theories for the origins of spectrum allocation law: Coase (J Law Econ 2(1):1�40, 1959), emphasizing policy error; Hazlett (J Law Econ 33:133�175, 1990), focusing on �franchise rents� in a public choice framework; and the �public interest� hypothesis, reconstructed by Moss and Fein (J Policy Hist 15(4):389�416, 2003). Congress� revealed preferences prove consistent with the franchise rents theory, while contradicting the other two.