Spectrum Regulation in Brazil: The Case for Fluid Property Rights

Abstract

This paper presents the idea of fluid property rights in spectrum regulation in Brazil. Legal institutions help shape different markets and henceforth different kinds of market economies, under the adopted purview of New Institutional Economics and Legal Analysis of Economic Policy. Brazilian legal thought on property is unaware of the concept of property as a bundle of excludable rights, a concept useful because those rights are shaped by legal institutions. Fluid property rights is property designed not as single bundle of rights, but as multiple bundles at the same time in a way that owners have more value when legal standards are met. To design a fluid property rights regime of spectrum, the article tries to identify the rights characteristic of the bundle of spectrum property in Brazil. As a conclusion, tentative designs of spectrum fluid property rights are presented, based on current problems of spectrum allocation.