Speaker: Toni Internet censorship today is widespread, both by governments and by private entities. Much of the discussion so far has focused on political and social effects of this censorship. However, censorship also has a clear effect on the economic structure of society that has not been explored. When censorship increases the cost of information, it also increases the cost of doing business as a whole. At the same time, however, censorship can also serve as protectionism. How large and pervasive the impact on an economic system is, is difficult to gauge. Even more so, getting reliable information about censorship and its economic effects is a real challenge. This talk seeking to establish a link between censorship and economic performance and is based on my PhD project in Economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Censorship is “the control of the information and ideas circulated within a society”. Governments have tried to control information for as long as they have existed, but new technologies have changed censorship significantly. Internet censorship today is widespread. Governments and companies differ in both the extent of their censorship and the technical implementation. I conceptualize censorship as falling on a continuum between the theoretical ideal state of “no censorship”, most closely approximated by Iceland (Freedom on the Net 2014) and pervasive censorship and isolation, like in North Korea. In the series of papers I am currently writing as part of my PhD in Economics, I focus on both theoretical arguments on the possible costs (and benefits?) of censorship for economies, and try to construct a reliable estimate. Having a background in China was a main motivation for this project, as censorship is so wide-spread there. The US has recently dubbed “The Great Firewall” protectionism, but did not further elucidate what is meant by this. The economic effects of internet censorship have not been studied comprehensively yet.