The Unintended Consequences of Internet Regulation 

Over the last few years, there has been an increasing drumbeat for greater internet regulation. But even the most well-intended policy approaches may have completely unexpected negative consequences that may outweigh the benefits sought by the regulation in the first place. Those benefits can be difficult to achieve and difficult to measure, while this paper finds that such regulations frequently have a negative impact on investment in covered internet companies, with declines ranging from 15% to 73%.

More From The Research Center

The State of Competition in UK Cloud Computing

While the demand for cloud services keeps growing globally and consumers and businesses are presented with a variety of almost custom-made cloud solutions, it is important to ensure that any barrie...

Hate Speech & Digital Ads: The Impact of Harmful Content on Brands

Data from two independently-administered survey experiments demonstrates significant likely damage to both websites and advertisers from harmful content like hate speech, suggesting that "must-carr...

Apocalypse Not: The Resilience of Retail SMBs in the 2010s

This study finds that small and medium-sized retail businesses (SMBs) experienced a period of resurgence and growth in the 2010s. Empirical analyses suggest a direct link between growth of retail S...

Social Media Survey Experiment

This survey shows the impact of objectionable user-generated content on social media sites and digital advertising. The experiment results find that content like hate speech, offensive material, mi...