Whither Broadband Policy? In Search of Selective Intervention

The broadband plans deployed by governments have not benefited so far from substantive theoretical or empirical economic insights on the relative effectiveness of alternative combinations of policy interventions (on which more will be said in the next section). This paper make a first attempt at filling this gap by exploring whether some (set of) policy tools has so far proven to be more effective than others. We collected detailed data on the policies adopted by 21 OECD countries and perform a cross-country analysis. Our evidence suggests the relevance of the institutional environment form one side and the importance of demand-side interventions from the other. Interventions on the supply side appear to be less effective on broadband diffusion than those on the demand side.