Contributors to IP
DemocracyI
Thomas W. Hazlett is a Senior Fellow at
the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research,
Adjunct Professor of Business and Public Policy
at the Wharton School, and a Columnist for the
Financial Times. His research focuses on law and
economics, with particular emphasis on
telecommunications policy. Dr. Hazlett received
his Ph.D. in economics from U.C.L.A. From 1984
through June 2000 he was a professor at the
University of California, Davis, where he taught
economics and finance and served as Director of
the Program on Telecommunications Policy. In
1991-92 he served as Chief Economist of the
Federal Communications Commission in Washington,
D.C.
Dr. Hazlett's
academic research has appeared in such
publications as the Journal of Financial
Economics, Journal of Law & Economics, Economic
Inquiry, Southern Economic Journal, Review of
Industrial Organization, Journal of Legal
Studies, Columbia Law Review, Journal of
Regulatory Economics, Supreme Court Economic
Review, Business & Politics, Hastings Law
Journal, The Public Interest, International
Journal of the Economics of Business, Public
Choice, Regulation, Managerial & Decision
Economics, Yale Journal on Regulation,
Telecommunications Policy, Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Harvard Journal
on Law & Public Policy, Connecticut Law Review,
Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law
Review, Federal Communications Law Journal,
Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy, Stanford
Technology Law Review, and the University of
Pennsylvania Law Review. He has also contributed
articles to such general interest periodicals as
Barron’s, Wall Street Journal, New York Times,
Newsday, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune,
Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, The
Economist, Reader's Digest, Across the Board,
Chief Executive, The American Enterprise, The
Weekly Standard, Forbes, and The New Republic.
He served as a contributing editor to Harper's,
was a columnist for Forbes ASAP, and wrote the
“Selected Skirmishes” column in Reason Magazine,
1989-2000.
Dr. Hazlett is a
Senior Adviser to Analysis Group/Economics, and
has provided expert testimony in federal and
state courts, before the Department of Commerce,
General Accounting Office, and the Federal
Communications Commission, and to committees of
Congress. In addition, he has served as a
consultant to numerous private firms, the State
of California, Congressional Budget Office,
federal agencies, municipal governments and
foreign governments. Dr. Hazlett is a member of
the Mont Pelerin Society, a Senior Research
Associate of the Columbia Institute for
Tele-information, and a Senior Fellow of the
Liberal Institute in Prague, Czech Republic. In
1990-91 he was awarded the Wriston Citicorp
Fellowship, a prize awarded annually by the
Manhattan Institute to a young scholar working
in an important area of public policy. His book
(with Matthew L. Spitzer), Public Policy Toward
Cable Television, was published by the MIT Press
in 1997.
Jonathan Taplin
is an Adjunct Professor at USC Annenberg School
of Communications. Jonathan Taplin's areas
of specialization are in International
Communication Management and the field of
digital media entertainment. Taplin began his
entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for
Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced
Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean
Streets which was selected for the Cannes Film
Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced
26 hours of television documentaries (including
The Prize and Cadillac Desert for
PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last
Waltz, Until The End of the World,
Under Fire and To Die For. His films
were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards
and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival seven
times.
In 1984 Taplin acted as the investment advisor
to the Bass Brothers in their successful attempt
to save Walt Disney Studios from a corporate
raid. This experience brought him to Merrill
Lynch, where he served as vice president of
media mergers and acquisitions. In this role, he
helped re-engineer the media landscape on
transactions such as the leveraged buyout of
Viacom. Taplin was a founder of Intertainer and
has served as its Chairman and CEO since June
1996. Intertainer was the pioneer
video-on-demand company for both cable and
broadband Internet markets. Taplin holds two
patents for video on demand technologies.
Mr. Taplin graduated from Princeton University.
He is a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences and sits on the advisory board
of the Democracy Collaborative at the University
of Maryland.
