Research

I study breakdowns in retransmission consent negotiations between U.S. broadcast television stations and video distributors. Using a new dataset of blackout events, I document substantial variation in blackout duration and show that shorter disputes are associated with higher-stakes bargaining environments. I develop a structural model of bargaining under incomplete information, linking blackout duration to disagreement costs and uncertainty over surplus. Future counterfactuals will simulate the effects of broadcast station consolidation, such as the Nexstar-Tegna merger, and regulatory constraints on carriage negotiations.

The internet relies on interconnections between its constituent networks, yet there is little empirical evidence on how regulation shapes these relationships. South Korea offers a rare natural experiment: a 2016 mandatory Sending Party Network Pays rule, reinforced by the 2020 "Netflix Law" introduced a regulated fee for domestic interconnection. Using inferred relationships between networks and a synthetic control design, I find that the share of Korean transit links involving a foreign network increased by approximately 5–7 percentage points relative to the synthetic control. The findings suggest that the regulated fee induced Korean networks to substitute from domestic to foreign transit, altering the geography of internet interconnection.