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%.