Abstract
Federal Trade Commission economist Keith Anderson agrees with the two central points of Beard and Abernethy's 2005 article “Consumer Prices and the Federal Trade Commission's ‘Do-Not-Call’ Program.” Do-not-call regulations make it more costly for some marketers to provide consumers with useful product information. Consumer telecommunications service prices are also likely to be higher than they would be without the regulations. However, the authors of this commentary disagree with the household cost estimate of telecommunications services that Anderson suggests and with his argument that only telecommunications costs should be considered when trying to determine whether do-not-call regulations have increased overall consumer welfare. The authors hope that the Federal Trade Commission will explicitly consider the consumer and business costs of advertising restrictions when considering future advertising regulation.
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