Two Think Minimum

Cathryn Ross is director of regulatory affairs at BT. Before that, she was head of Ofwat (Water Services Regulation Authority.) She joins TPI Senior Fellow Bob Hahn on this wide-ranging discussion of the economics of regulation.

Dimitri Sirota is CEO and cofounder of BigID. Sirota is the CEO of one of the first enterprise privacy management platforms called BigID and a privacy and identity expert. He is an established serial entrepreneur, investor, mentor and strategist and previously founded two enterprise software companies focused on security and API management, Layer Seven technologies which was sold to CA Technologies in 2013.

Tim Muris is a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and currently a George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, at Scalia Law School and Senior Counsel at the law firm Sidley-Austin. He has substantial experience in every aspect of antitrust enforcement as well as in key consumer protection issues, including advertising, consumer finance and privacy regulation. During his lengthy tenure with the FTC, Mr. Muris held multiple high-level posts and was the only person ever to direct both of the FTC’s enforcement bureaus. It was under his leadership that the FTC established the National Do Not Call Registry and brought numerous high-profile cases against firms for misusing government practices to raise prices. Professor Muris has held three previous positions at the Commission: Assistant Director of the Planning Office (1974-1976), Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection (1981-1983), and Director of the Bureau of Competition (1983-1985). After leaving the FTC in 1985, Muris served with the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget for three years. Jon Neuchterlein is a partner and co-leader of Sidley’s Telecom and Internet Competition practice, focuses on telecommunications law, antitrust, and appellate litigation. He rejoined the firm in 2016 after serving as General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission. Jon’s extensive government experience also includes positions as Deputy General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, as Assistant to the Solicitor General, and as law clerk to D.C. Circuit Judge Stephen Williams and Supreme Court Justice David Souter. He is the author (with Phil Weiser) of a widely cited treatise on telecommunications law and policy. The Best Lawyers in America recently named Jon as the 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” for Communications Law in Washington, D.C. As the FTC’s General Counsel from 2013 to 2016, Jon represented the FTC in court, provided legal counsel on a range of antitrust and consumer protection issues, and oversaw the Commission’s appellate litigation activities. Their paper, "Antitrust in the Internet Era: The Legacy of United States v. A&P", can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11151-019-09685-7

Professor William Kovacic is the Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy, Professor of Law, and Director of the Competition Law Center at George Washington University Law School. Bill has many years of experience as an antitrust scholar and practitioner, serving at the Federal Trade Commission as Chairman (2008-2009), Commissioner (2006-2011), and General Counsel (2001-2004).

Brian Sullivan of CNBC and Laura Martin of Needham & Company sit down with Scott Wallsten in this episode recorded in Aspen, Colorado at the Technology Policy Institute's annual Aspen Forum on August 18-20, 2019. Brian, Laura, and Scott discuss a wide range of topics from eSports, gaming, Fortnite, and the future of media. Brian and Laura discuss their perspectives on the growing influence of Washington, D.C. on business decisions on Wall Street and around the world.

Randal Picker is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, Senior Fellow at the Computation Institute of the University of Chicago Argonne National Laboratory, and affiliate faculty with the Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics. Professor Picker currently teaches classes at the Law School in Secured Transactions and Antitrust and a seminar on antitrust and intellectual property policy. In prior years, Professor Picker has taught Network Industries, Bankruptcy and Copyright; Technology, Innovation and Society; Corporate Reorganizations, Commercial Law and Civil Procedure. He has also taught seminars on Game Theory and the Law and The Legal Infrastructure of High-Tech Industries.

Panel event recorded on Wednesday, June 5, 2019, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM, at TPI Conference Center, 409 12th Street, SW, Second Floor, Washington, DC 20024. To maximize spectrum’s value, it must be able to transition to new uses as technologies emerge. The C-Band includes 500 MHz of particularly desirable spectrum between 3.7 and 4.2 GHz that is currently allocated for satellite use. Given fast-growing wireless use and emerging 5G technologies, there is widespread agreement that at least some C-Band spectrum should be available for terrestrial uses instead of satellite uses, and that the reallocation should happen as quickly as possible. But there is less agreement on how much to reallocate and how to do it. The largest satellite companies that currently use the band have proposed a private sale. T-Mobile has proposed an incentive auction similar to the one the FCC recently completed for broadcast spectrum. Broadcasters and cable companies, meanwhile, are wary of reallocations that may disrupt the airwaves that they use to distribute programming. This panel will discuss the economic, policy, and practical implications of the competing proposals as well as whether and how the FCC will respond to these options for C-Band reallocation. Panelists included Tim Brennan, Professor, Public Policy and Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Colleen King, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Charter Communications; Patrick McFadden, National Association of Broadcasters, Peter Pitsch, Head of Advocacy & Government Relations, C-Band Alliance; Steve Sharkey, Vice President, Government Affairs, Engineering and Technology Policy, T-Mobile; Scott Wallsten (moderator), President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute

TPI hosted a panel of experts on April 9, 2019 in Washington, D.C. to discuss technical concerns and the costs and benefits of banning Huawei from U.S. telecommunications markets. Experts from the National Defense University, George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, Virginia Tech, the New America Foundation and Politico participated in the discussion.

Tyler Cowen is the New York Times bestselling author of the Great Stagnation and writer of a daily blog called Marginal Revolution. He holds the Holbert L. Harris Chair in Economics at George Mason University, writes as a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, and hosts a popular discussion series called Conversations with Tyler where he interviews leading thinkers of our time. Today we're excited to talk with Tyler Cowen about his new book entitled, Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero. Welcome back to TPI’s podcast, Two Think Minimum. It's Thursday, May 2, 2019, and I’m Scott Wallsten, President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. I am joined today by Sarah Oh, TPI Senior Fellow and a former PhD student of Tyler’s at George Mason University. I will let Sarah start the discussion of his new book!

Blockchain and cryptocurrency experts discussed their 2019 policy priorities at a recent luncheon on Capitol Hill on March 15, 2019 hosted by the Technology Policy Institute in conjunction with the Blockchain Caucus. The conversation focused on stablecoins, privacy, and regulatory uncertainty. Blockchain 201: Policy Questions for 2019, 12:30 – 2:00 PM, Capitol Visitors Center, First Street, NE, CVC – Congressional Meeting Room North (CVC 268), Washington, DC 20515. As firms continue investing in blockchain, which has endured its first boom-bust cycle, policymakers are considering whether and how to regulate this new technology. In this panel, we will discuss whether policymakers are speeding or slowing the rollout of blockchain and what Congress can do to encourage innovation and protect consumers. For private blockchains, are policies supporting continued investment in auditability, interbank settlement networks, and supply chain safety? For public blockchains, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin, will open protocols usher in new innovations in networked communications, or might the technology fail to gain traction? Should light-touch regulation, if any, apply to crypto-asset markets? Join us for a lively discussion about what Congress should consider as it seeks to make policy. This lunch event is in conjunction with the Blockchain Caucus. Speakers include: Jerry Brito, Executive Director, Coin Center, Daniel Gorfine, Chief Innovation Officer and Director of LabCFTC, Mark O’Riley, Technology Policy Counsel, International Business Machines, Diego Zuluaga, Policy Analyst, Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, Cato Institute, Sarah Oh (moderator), Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute