Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control 26 (2002) 1651 – 1675 www.elsevier.com/locate/econbase The communications and information economy: issues, taris and economics research areas L.-F. Pau Ericsson Utvecklings AB, Box 1505, S 12525  Alvsj o, Sweden and Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, UK Abstract This survey paper analyses some of the fundamental economic issues concerning the commu- nications and information economy. The rst highlighted major trends are the balkanisation of the communications networks, and the advent of competitive taris. This leads to a move away from time- and distance-based charges to taris covering bandwidth, service, and contents use. It is noted that very few resources have gone into the analysis of that sector and its inter-relations with others. The paper advocates for more visibility and research into the unique aspects of the communi- cations and information sector. It does so by making an inventory of key economics and com- putational economics research issues in need of contributions, selected from the following areas: • public communications infrastructure and taring principles, • sales of communications services, • public access and equal access policies, • competitive access pricing, • communications industry nance, • engineering-economic studies, • information contents, • macroeconomic issues. Finally, the specic aspects of models of the communications and media sector are addressed in view of modelling work. This includes variables, pricing and production models for both communications and information contents. The most unique contribution is here a formal model for quantifying and pricing knowledge, both for consumption and for assets building. c  2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. E-mail address: louis-francois.pau@uab.ericsson.se (L.-F. Pau). 0165-1889/02/$ - see front matter c  2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. PII: S0165-1889(01)00089-6