George Mason University economist Thomas Hazlett was part of the same competitiveness workshop that featured the Alan Blinder talk described below. He sliced off a smaller piece of the competitiveness pie, focusing on the U.S. experience in wireless communications.

Hazlett is a contrarian and a libertarian (and probably some other things that end in -rian), so he didn't offer the familiar refrain about how smart the Europeans are and how great their GSM system is. What happened, he said, was that Americans were the wireless pioneers, then fell behind because the FCC was so slow to approve digital wireless licenses. The Europeans moved ahead with their digital GSM, which wasn't better because it imposed the same standards on all wireless carriers, but because it came out earlier. "We allowed a lot more flexibility and a lot more competition among operators," he said. "On the other hand, the Europeans moved quickly and eliminated regulatory blocks." Now the U.S. way is paying off in the form of more innovation, Hazlett argued, although the failure of the federal government to allot more bandwidth for wireless is crimping the industry's style.

Several people in the audience reacted with incredulity to Hazlett's assertion that U.S. wireless policy isn't a total disaster. They told tales of driving through South Africa, or between Jordan and Israel, and getting wireless reception vastly better than that available on Interstate 280 on the edge of Silicon Valley. Hazlett had a response, but I cut him off because I was moderating the discussion and time was up. I'll get the full answer from him later.