The study is the latest of several weighing in on the economic impact of net neutrality rules, which are now being considered by the FCC. A by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law suggested net neutrality rules would preserve the investments of Web content producers such as newspapers and bloggers. Just this Thursday, the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, a free-market think tank, released questioning the economic benefits of net neutrality rules.

The mobile broadband industry would be hit particularly hard by net neutrality rules, said , funded by the Mobile Future, a Washington, D.C., group advocating for pro-business mobile issues.

"Wireless would be disproportionately impacted, because it represents the majority of [broadband] growth over the next decade," Bazelon said.

The study also suggested that any Web content jobs that might be created with strong net neutrality rules wouldn't offset the losses in the broadband sector. Content jobs cost more to create than broadband jobs, meaning a direct transfer of profits from broadband to content would be a "net job loser," Bazelon said.

"Different content might be better under a net neutrality regulatory regime, but there's no theoretical reason to believe there will be more content or more valued content," Bazelon said. "The losses in the broadband sector are large, creating a large hurdle that the content sector would have to overcome."