The role of economic techniques in spectrum management

In recent years the management of the radio spectrum, in terms of deciding which applications and which users should have access to it, has become increasingly difficult. This is due to the dramatic growth in users and applications requiring radio spectrum and the need from the government for increasing openness and fairness in making decisions. A number of spectrum managers have investigated the use of economic tools to overcome these problems, including an analysis of the economic value of the spectrum, pricing the spectrum, allowing trading in spectrum, and using competitions to assign spectrum. This article examines the roles of these techniques and suggests that there is a strong argument for their widespread adoption within most spectrum managers