Network Economics

The rapid growth of online search and its centrality to the ecology of the Internet pose important questions: why is the search engine market so concentrated, and will it evolve towards monopoly? What implications does this concentration have for consumers, search engines, and advertisers? Does search require regulation, and, if so, in what form? This paper supplies empirical and theoretical material with which to examine these questions. In particular, we (a) show that the already large levels of concentration are likely to continue; (b) identify the consequences, negative and positive, of this outcome; and (c) discuss the regulatory interventions that policy-makers could use to address these.

Network neutrality for the Internet has been a fiercely debated topic for more than 15 years. Arguably spurred by recent regulatory actions in the US and the tremendous ecosystem evolution as characterized by the emergence and growing importance of global cloud platforms as well as the Internet of Things, the debate has recently seen a resurgence. This paper describes the origins and development of the regulatory stance towards network neutrality in the US and the EU. Against the background of the diverse evolutionary forces that shape the ecosystem, we examine network neutrality regulation through the lens of network economics. In doing so, we describe a series of challenges and misconceptions associated with current regulations and expound the requirement for a market-driven understanding of network neutrality.

Studies by the Economics Policy Working GroupSoil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa quantified the financial returns, farmer perceptions and adoption patterns of Integrated Soil fertility Management Technologies-ISFMTs developed under farmer-managed conditions. This review presents finding of selected case studies on factors influencing the adoption of ISFMTs in Zimbabwe and Malawi and draw implications for Zambia and Mozambique The studies employed economic financial and econometric analytical tools. The results showed that ISFMTs examined have modest financial returns which depended on the end-use and marketability of the outputs associated with the practices, valuation of the biomass advantages in building soil fertility. The perception and risk aversion behavior of farmers and prevailing input and out marketing environment significantly affect the financial viability of ISFMTs. Although some ISFMTs make a very significant contribution to soil fertility, their ease of adop...

The golden age of road demand modeling began in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in the face of major road construction needs. These macro-models as well as the econometrics and the data to be processed, were mainly provided by engineers. A division of tasks can be observed between the engineers in charge of estimating the flows within the network, and the transport economists in charge of managing these flows once they are on the road network. Yet the inability to explain their decision-making processes and individual drives gave some room to economists to introduce economic analysis, so as to better understand individual or collective decisions between transport alternatives. Economists, in particular McFadden, began to offer methods to improve the measure of utility linked to transport, and to inform the engineering approach. This paper explores the challenges to the boundaries between economics and engineering in road demand analysis. 1 This paper was first presented at the Charles Gide 2019 workshop "Evolutions of the Disciplinary Boundaries of Economics with the Other Sciences," Montreal (QC, Canada), 25-27 June. It was partly based on a paper presented at the HOPE CONFERENCE "Becoming Applied: The Transformation of Economics," April 2016. We would like to thank the participants of both conferences and especially Marcel Boumans. We would also to thank Julien Dupont, Emmanuelle Kalfon and Ms. Anne Le Bihan of the "L'Ecume" bookshop of Groix.

The golden age of road demand modeling began in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in the face of major road construction needs. These macro models, as well as the econometrics and the data to be processed, were provided mainly by engineers. A division of tasks can be observed between the engineers in charge of estimating the flows within the network and the transport economists in charge of managing these flows once they are on the road network. Yet the inability to explain their decision-making processes and individual drives gave some room to economists to introduce economic analysis, so as to better understand individual or collective decisions between transport alternatives. Economists, in particular Daniel McFadden, began to offer methods to improve the measure of utility linked to transport and to inform the engineering approach. This paper explores the challenges to the boundaries between economics and engineering in road demand analysis.

In markets that have forces encouraging the adoption of a dominant design, the size of a technology's installed base and the availability of complementary goods may be the most important factors determining its success or failure. This article examines the path dependent nature of technology trajectories, and the self-reinforcing effects of installed base and complementary goods. The article posits that firms can greatly influence their installed base and the availability of complementary goods through their distribution, alliance and marketing strategies. Both theory and examples are used to demonstrate how firms can manage the dynamics of technology selection in their favor.

In recent years, many of the Asian countries follow suit to implement competition law. Are there any differences with regards to the intention to implement competition law? Are they driven by similar lines of reasoning? Many of the previous research shed light on one or two Asia countries reasons for implementing competition law. Others focus on the US antitrust law or EU competition law only. This paper compares and contrasts the similarities and differences with regards to the major motives in implementing competition laws/antitrust laws. We first used content analysis to categorize the reasons for implementation of competition law. After that, data visualization method is used to study the the reasons mentioned by official websites and academic journals which lead to the implementation of competition laws in different countries.

Network organisation was ubiquitous in the early modern period. However, throughout much of the Middle Ages, it was not the predominant method of coordinating business activities. Poloni argues that such organisational forms only became widespread among European merchants in the second half of the 14th century. Clarifying the chronology of this diffusion can enhance our understanding of the broader economic transformations that occurred in the late Middle Ages.

The goal of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is to facilitate the emergence of a competitive, intra-European market by making cross-border payments as easy as domestic transactions. With crossborder inter-operability for electronic payments, card transactions will increasingly replace cash and checks for all types of payments. Using different methods, we estimate card and other payment network scale economies for Europe. These indicate substantial cost efficiency gains if processing is consolidated across borders rather than "piggybacked" onto existing national operations. Cost reductions likely to induce greater replacement of small value cash transactions are also illustrated.

The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. This paper presents a theoretical framework for analyzing pricing structures in debit card schemes featuring cardholders, retailers, their respective banks, and a network routing switch. The network routing switch controls the electronic debit card network and is jointly owned by the banks. In setting its prices, it needs to consider getting both consumers and retailers to participate in the market. In this two-sided market for debit cards, we show that the "double-monopolistic" network routing switch may want to supply consumers with cheap debit cards, deriving profits from charging a high retailer fee per transaction. This theoretic result resembles the current practice in the Netherlands where consumers pay no transaction fee, but retailers do. This corner solution carries over when we analyze socially optimal pricing.

Mandatory network unbundling is one of the foremost topics in regulatory economics today. The concept has crucial importance in the deregulation of many previously regulated industries including telecommunications, gas, electricity and railroads. Moreover, the topic has emerged as one of the more prominent issues associated with the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunication Act in the United States. Upon initial examination, establishing the correct costing standards and/or determining the correct input prices would seem important for sending the correct price signals to the entrants for their efficient make-or-buy decisions. Sappington (AER, 2005) uses a standard Hotelling location model to show that input prices are irrelevant for an entrant's make or buy decision. In this first essay, we show that this result is closely related to the degree of product differentiation when firms are engaged in price competition. Specifically, it is shown that input prices are irrelevant when firms produce homogeneous products, but are relevant for make-or-buy decisions when the entrant and incumbent produce differentiated products. These results suggest that, in general, it is important for regulators to set correct prices in order to not distort the entrants' efficient make-or-buy decisions. The second essay investigates optimal access charges when the downstream markets are imperfectly competitive. Optimal access charges have been examined in the literature mainly under the condition where only the incumbent has market power. However, network industries tend to exhibit an oligopolistic market structure. Therefore, the optimal access charge under imperfect competition is an important consideration when regulators determine access charges. This essay investigates some general principles for setting optimal access charges when downstream markets are imperfectly competitive. One of the primary objectives of this essay is to show the importance of the break-even constraint when first-best access charges are not feasible. Specifically, we show that when the first-best access charges are not feasible, the imposition of the break-even constraint on only the upstream profit of the incumbent is superior to the case where break-even constraint applies to overall incumbent profit, where the latter is the most commonly used constraint in the access pricing literature. Bypass and its implications for optimal access charges and welfare are also explored. The third essay is empirical in nature and investigates two primary issues, both relating to unbundled network element (UNE) prices. First, as Crandall, Ingraham, and Singer (2004) suggested, we will empirically test the stepping stone hypothesis using a state-level data set that spans multiple years. To do this, we will explore the effect of UNE prices on facilities-based entry. Second, in light of those findings, we will investigate whether the form of regulation (e.g. price cap and rate of return regulation) endogenously affects the regulator's behavior with respect to competitive entry. Lehman and Weisman (2000) found evidence that regulators in price cap jurisdictions tend to set more liberal terms of entry in comparison with regulators in rate-of-return jurisdictions. This paper investigates whether their result is robust to various changes in modeling, including specification and econometric techniques.

Durante la última década del siglo XX, la producción agropecuaria de la región pampeana ve reforzada su tendencia a la concentración económica, reduciéndose de forma muy significativa el número de EAPs. Si bien no existen relevamientos censales que den cuenta de lo ocurrido tras la crisis de 2001-2002, numerosos indicios señalan que este proceso continúa en la actualidad. Aparecen como protagonistas del mismo grandes capitales arrendatarios que logran, al tomar superficies lo suficientemente amplias, obtener economías de escala que les permiten desplazar a rivales menores merced a su posibilidad de ofrecer arriendos superiores. En este artículo se ofrecen los resultados de una investigación sobre una de las formas jurídicas que adopta este proceso: la constitución de Fideicomisos Financieros. Esta ha sido una herramienta financiera de muy alto crecimiento desde 2004, y parcialmente se ha volcado al sector agrario. Luego de compilar la información sobre la totalidad de FF colocados e...

Why regulate natural monopolies? Conventional economic theory points to the price-marginal cost margin and the ensuing deadweight loss. But this hypothesis does a poor job of explaining the way that regulators behave in practice. This paper proposes an alternative hypothesis: that natural monopoly regulation exists to protect the sunk investments made by consumers of the regulated firm. This hypothesis explains many of the practices of regulators which make little or no sense under conventional economic theory, such as the desire to pursue stable prices, the aversion to forms of price discrimination such as Ramsey pricing, and the role of incremental cost as a pricing floor.

The notion of electronic commerce (E-commerce) has been gaining in popularity with the rise of commercial activities on electronic networks, especially on the Internet. In the academic world (e.g. Brynjolfson & Smith [1999], Shapiro & Varian [1999]) as well as in governmental organizations (e.g. OCDE [1996-19998], Lorentz [1998], US Dept. Of Commerce [1998, 1999]), many

Bródy"s conjecture is submitted to an empirical test using input-output flow data of varying size for the US economy for the benchmark years 1997 and 2002, as well as for the period 1998-2010. The results suggest that the ratio of the modulus of the subdominant eigenvalue to the dominant one increases both with the size of the matrix and, for the same matrix size, over the years lending support to the view of increasing instability (in the sense of Bródy) for the US economy over the period 1997-2010.

On-line content delivery and vertical alliances between conduit and content providers are nowadays crucial issues in on-line content markets. In this paper, we discuss and compare two types of model for on-line content delivery: push and pull. We assume non-zero marginal cost for network transits, justified by the presence of network services for content delivery (like data caching). Under both models, we show that the rationale behind vertical strategic integration between conduit and content providers in the case of successive monopolies.

On-line content delivery and vertical alliances between conduit and content providers are nowadays crucial issues in digital markets. In this paper, we discuss and compare a push and a pull model for on-line content delivery in the case of non-zero marginal cost for network transits because of network services for content delivery (like data caching). Under both models, we show that rationales for vertical strategic integration between conduit and content providers phase out in successive monopolies and Bertrand duopolies.

On-line content delivery and vertical alliances between conduit and content providers are nowadays crucial issues in on-line content markets. In this paper, we discuss and compare two types of model for on-line content delivery: push and pull. We assume non-zero marginal cost for network transits, justified by the presence of network services for content delivery (like data caching). Under both models, we show that the rationale behind vertical strategic integration between conduit and content providers in the case of successive monopolies.

This paper investigates Barabási-Albert (BA) and Erdős-Rényi model and preferential attachment in different settings: social choice and social distance, news veracity and networks, Prospect theory with social choice, and Wardrop equilibrium with Braess paradox. News veracity is higher in Erdős-Rényi graph vs Barabási-Albert (BA), in the Erdős-Rényi graph spread of misinformation is higher than in the model with hubs (influential nodes). In the average social distance and education level model there is higher news veracity between most educated individuals (PhD's) more when two nodes have less than highest education. Probability of news being true (news veracity) is lowest for PhD's but gaslighting (probability of perception of being gaslighted) is highest. With a degree centrality included nodes (individuals) with lower level of education perceive higher new veracity. Price of Anarchy (PoA) is higher in Erdős-Rényi (ER) versus Barabási-Albert graph. With Prospect theory in news veracity network gain and loss lines are further way on the left from reference point, with a letter being more to left. Congestion in the market for news makes more and more agents further away from equilibrium state.

Sociology and other social sciences have employed network analysis earlier than management and organization sciences, and much earlier than economics, which has been the last one to systematically adopt it. Nevertheless, the development of network economics during last 15 years has been massive, alongside three main research streams: strategic formation network modeling, (mostly descriptive) analysis of real economic networks, and optimization methods of economic networks. The main reason why this enthusiastic and rapidly diffused interest of economists came so late is that the most essential network properties, like externalities, endogenous change processes, and nonlinear propagation processes, definitely prevent the possibility to build a general -and indeed even partial -competitive equilibrium theory. For this paradigm has dominated economics in the last century, this incompatibility operated as a hard brake, and presented network analysis as an inappropriate epistemology. Further, being intrinsically (and often, until recent times, also radically) structuralist, social network analysis was also antithetic to radical methodological individualism, which was -and still is -economics dominant methodology. Though culturally and scientifically influenced by economists in some fields, like finance, banking and industry studies, scholars in management and organization sciences were free from "neoclassical economics chains", and therefore more ready and open to adopt the methodology and epistemology of social network analysis. The main and early field through which its methods were channeled was the sociology of organizations, and in particular group structure and communication, because this is a research area largely overlapped between sociology and management studies. Currently, network analysis is becoming more and more diffused within management and organization sciences. Mostly descriptive until 15 years ago, all the fields of social network analysis have a great opportunity of enriching and developing its methods of investigation through statistical network modeling, which offers the possibility to develop, respectively, network formation and network dynamics models. They are a good compromise between the much more powerful agent-based simulation models and the usually descriptive (or poorly analytical) methods.

The paper discusses port pricing structures that enhance ship efficiency. Traditionally, ports use public infrastructure pricing, which does not take differences in waiting cost into considerations. We present two alternatives, a two part priority pricing scheme and port slot auctions, as alternative scheduling and pricing schemes that enhance ship efficiency.

In a world where networks become a dominant form of organization, the structure of networks and the position of individuals in these networks affect individual behavior and aggregate economic outcomes. The analysis of network formation by a central planner or by individuals themselves is at the heart of this thesis on the economics of networks.Chapter 1 theoretically studies the optimal formation and protection of networks by a central planner knowing that an external agent can destroy k links. The protection of the network can be guaranteed either by densifying the links between nodes, or by protecting the links. When the cost of protection is relatively small, a minimally connected network composed of protected links guarantees the communication flow; if this cost is high, the optimal solution is to form a symmetric network where each node has at least k+1 non-protected links.Chapter 2 explores the decentralized formation of networks in the laboratory by analyzing individual linki...

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We study second-degree price discrimination in markets where the product traded by the monopolist is access to other agents. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the welfareand the profit-maximizing mechanisms to employ a single network or a ...

The vital significance of law in economics is essential for understanding the intricate relationship between these two fundamental disciplines. Law plays a pivotal role in shaping and regulating economic activities, ensuring fairness, stability, and efficiency within a society. By establishing legal frameworks, property rights, and contractual obligations, the law provides the necessary structure for economic transactions and interactions to thrive. Moreover, it facilitates the resolution of disputes, protects consumers, and promotes market competition. Without law, the complex dynamics of markets and economies would be prone to chaos, leading to detrimental consequences for individuals, businesses, and the overall socioeconomic fabric of a nation. In essence, the symbiotic connection between law and economics underscores the indispensability of law as a crucial pillar in the pursuit of prosperous and equitable societies.

Many Maine telephone customers can save money on their monthly phone bills by carefully choosing an in-state toll carrier and authorizing that carrier to serve them directly. If your average cost per minute is more than 12 cents, it may be time to switch carriers. While the cost for changing carriers is $5, in most cases, your new carrier will pay that fee for you.

In recent years youth unemployment has increased very quickly and intensely namely regarding the higher education qualified, in Portugal. This outward movement is so strong that it can be viewed as a true brain drain. This paper aims to quantify the variables under consideration – unemployment and emigration - in last decade and present some of the reasons for the skilled emigration in Portugal. These reasons come from the preliminary results of a research that the authors are carrying out on the subject. The research is financed by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology), the main official agency for funding research in the country.

We analyze the impact on consumer prices of some information characteristics of price-comparison search platforms. An equilibrium model where vendors compete in prices and consumers do not observe prices, but can obtain price information through a search platform, is developed. The model generates several predictions about the impact on the price distribution of: (i) the size of the search platform’s sample, (ii) whether the search platform’s sample is random, and (iii) the number of vendors in the market. The model’s predictions are tested experimentally. The results confirm the predictions about (ii) and (iii), but reject the model’s predictions about (i).

We analyze the impact on consumer prices of the size and bias of price comparison search engines. In the context of a model related to , we develop and test experimentally several theoretical predictions. The experimental results confirm the model's predictions regarding the impact of the number of firms, and the type of bias of the search engine, but reject the model's predictions regarding changes in the size of the index. The explanatory power of an econometric model for the price distributions is significantly improved when variables accounting for risk attitudes are introduced.

Networks consist of agents and the activities of them. A large number of studies in mainstream economics focus on the activities of homogenous agents. However it is clear that the reality is quite different. In fact, economic systems involve many heterogeneous agents and their complex interactions. To overcome this weakness of the classical perspective, in recent years, direction of the studies has changed towards the complex networks. Agent based modeling and simulation (ABMS) is a powerful tool for analyzing such systems. Model enables interacting agents to assess individually their positions and make decisions on the basis of a set of rules that configure the system. The aim of this study is to guide the researchers who are interested in agent based modeling of complex networks, by examining its vide range of applications. Accordingly, first a brief explanation of complexity and complex systems is given. Then a literature survey on the studies concerning agent based modeling applications of social network is presented and suggestions are given for some promising applications.

The Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, is showing its age. 1 Like an old New England house that added drafty new additions over the years to accommodate a growing extended family, the Act is poorly suited to meet today's challenges. Much of what is included in the Act relates to earlier technologies, market structures, and regulatory constructs that address issues that are either no longer relevant or that cause confusion when one tries to map them to current circumstances. The legacy Act was crafted in a world of circuit-switched POTS 2 telephony provided by public utilities, and even when substantially revised in 1996, barely mentions broadband or the Internet. 3

Hace más o menos 25 años un autor norteamericano llamado Jhon Naisbitt en su famoso libro llamado "Megatendencias", planteó que uno de los grandes cambios que iba a vivir la humanidad era el hecho de que se iba a pasar de una sociedad de empleados a una sociedad de empresarios.

Desde la emergencia del neoliberalismo ha aflorado una nueva tendencia a la monopolización en la mayor parte de las economías occidentales. En particular, los países latinoamericanos han visto las consecuencias de esta tendencia con mayor gravedad debido a su condición periférica y dependiente. En este artículo buscamos dar cuenta del proceso de fortalecimiento del poder estructural del capital a través del análisis de las interacciones sectoriales entre ramas de actividad en Argentina. Abordamos esta problemática desde el enfoque de redes complejas y proponemos aproximar el poder estructural del capital mediante el índice PageRank. Los resultados encontrados permiten identificar, primero, cierta estabilidad en las posiciones de las ramas productivas en el entramado de relaciones intersectoriales, especialmente en los puestos líderes del ranking y, segundo, un vínculo positivo entre la inserción exportadora de los sectores y su participación en procesos de valorización globales, y el índice de centralidad de sus posiciones en el sistema productivo local.

The chapter has 9 sections, covering the theory of two-sided markets and related empirical work. Section 1 introduces the reader to the literature. Section 2 covers the case of markets dominated by a single monopolistic firm. Section 3 discusses the theoretical literature on competition for the market, focusing on pricing strategies that firms may follow to prevent entry. Section 4 discusses pricing in markets in which multiple platforms are active and serve both sides. Section 5 presents alternative models of platform competition. Section 6 discusses richer matching protocols whereby platforms pricediscriminate by granting access only to a subset of the participating agents from the other side and discusses the related literature on matching design. Section 7 discusses identification in empirical work. Section 8 discusses estimation in empirical work. Finally, Section 9 concludes.

T his article was written with the collaboration of Markus Breutsch (DiplomKaufman, HHL, Leipzig). It is based on a report prepared for EuroCommerce and a presentation to the ECR Academic Partnership Symposium in Stockholm, September 2006. Both are obtainable from the authors upon request. The world's payment card system -the system organizing the countless credit and debit card payments made by consumers every day -has become something of a puzzle.

Studies by the Economics Policy Working GroupSoil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa quantified the financial returns, farmer perceptions and adoption patterns of Integrated Soil fertility Management Technologies-ISFMTs developed under farmer-managed conditions. This review presents finding of selected case studies on factors influencing the adoption of ISFMTs in Zimbabwe and Malawi and draw implications for Zambia and Mozambique The studies employed economic financial and econometric analytical tools. The results showed that ISFMTs examined have modest financial returns which depended on the end-use and marketability of the outputs associated with the practices, valuation of the biomass advantages in building soil fertility. The perception and risk aversion behavior of farmers and prevailing input and out marketing environment significantly affect the financial viability of ISFMTs. Although some ISFMTs make a very significant contribution to soil fertility, their ease of adop...

Cierta Global History ha sido criticada como una nueva teleología que desfiguraría gravemente el universo de sentido de los hombres de cada época. Como reivindica la Connected History, son los actores, a través de sus fuentes documentales, los que nos muestran la extensión de su universo. Por ello, es necesario superar las comparaciones a gran escala que aplastan los contextos específicos e ignoran las fuentes de primera mano, para observar las relaciones, transferencias e influencias que se producen efectivamente, en cada momento, en cada contexto, a partir de las conexiones que establecen los propios actores sociales.
La observación de las conexiones entre las partes del mundo fue novedosa en un primer momento, pero ahora es necesario ir más allá e investigar los efectos que estas conexiones e interacciones produjeron en las sociedades del pasado. ¿Qué efectos transformadores tuvieron los cambios, recursos e ideas que se produjeron con la globalización de la primera modernidad en sociedades locales aparentemente enclavadas en sus inercias económicas y culturales?
La globalización temprana, con la formación de la monarquía española, la expansión imperial y el comercio colonial, abrió un contexto de oportunidades sin precedentes. Las posibilidades de enriquecimiento, de comunicación y de circulación de personas, ideas y saberes se multiplicó, con el tiempo, de forma exponencial. Sin embargo, sus efectos fueron profundamente diferenciales. La reducción de escala en la investigación nos ha permitido observar cómo, en esta apertura globalizadora, se formaron redes sociales selectivas cuyos miembros operaban a caballo entre las comunidades locales, la corte y el imperio. Los capitales, relaciones y modelos captados en las estructuras del imperio y en la economía globalizada permitieron a determinados grupos construir hegemonías locales y ampliar sus posibilidades de dominación. Este proceso produjo contrastes crecientes entre minorías globalizadas y mayorías enclavadas. Benefició especialmente a los grupos mejor conectados con las nuevas fuentes de riqueza y de poder, pero también alteró los equilibrios locales, generando desigualdades y tensiones en el seno de las comunidades.

Some Global History has been criticized as a new teleology that would seriously disfigure the universe of meaning of men of each era. As Connected History claims, it is the actors, through their documentary sources, who show us the extent of their universe. Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond large-scale comparisons that crush specific contexts and ignore first-hand sources, in order to observe the relationships, transfers and influences that actually occur, at each moment, in each context, based on the connections established by the social actors themselves.
The observation of the connections between the parts of the world was novel at first, but now it is necessary to go further and investigate the effects that these connections and interactions produced in the societies of the past. What transformative effects did the changes, resources and ideas that occurred with the globalization of early modernity have on local societies apparently stuck in their economic and cultural inertia?
Early globalization, with the formation of the Spanish monarchy, imperial expansion and colonial trade, opened up a context of unprecedented opportunities. The possibilities for enrichment, communication and the circulation of people, ideas and knowledge multiplied exponentially over time. However, their effects were deeply differential. The reduction of scale in the research has allowed us to observe how, in this globalizing opening, selective social networks were formed whose members operated between local communities, the court and the empire. The capitals, relationships and models captured in the structures of the empire and in the globalized economy allowed certain groups to build local hegemonies and expand their possibilities of domination. This process produced growing contrasts between globalized minorities and entrenched majorities. It especially benefited the groups best connected to the new sources of wealth and power, but it also altered local balances, generating inequalities and tensions within the communities.

The payment cards market is a two-sided market. Cost sensitivity of both consumers and merchants for card services influences total demand. Survey data of Dutch merchants shows that costs, and competition affect acceptance as well as surcharging decisions. Merchants who find payment cards expensive are less likely to accept them and more likely to surcharge their customers for using them. Merchants who face any competition accept debit card payments relatively more often than merchants with monopoly power, and they are less likely to surcharge their customers for debit card usage.

The Supreme Court Opinion on local exchange competition in general and on pricing and unbundling in particular was much anticipated and will be much discussed. Because of the very technical nature of the pricing and unbundling rules facing incumbent local exchange carriers there is a considerable risk that students of the Court's Opinion will be mired in the details of that Opinion and miss what we believe is a clear, unequivocal meta-message embedded in the Opinion. Specifically, this decision unequivocally affirms a fundamental shift in regulatory policy reflected in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That is, the Act dictates that regulators act not merely to disable monopoly but to adopt policies that affirmatively enable competition. The Court's Opinion now confirms this interpretation of the congressional intent behind the legislation. Thus, while it is fair to say that the Court's specific decision with respect to the pricing and unbundling issues represents an important component of a regulatory policy designed to promote competition in local exchange telephony, there is a larger lesson embedded in the Court's reading of the Telecommunications Act. In this paper we first consider in some detail the Opinion and how it reflects an unambiguous endorsement of a competition-enabling framework for the development of local exchange competition. Next, we point out that, despite the Court's unambiguous and clear ruling, a dispassionate scrutiny of economic and regulatory conditions present in local exchange markets-even in the wake of the Court's ruling-reveals a number of extraordinary obstacles to the successful emergence of effective local exchange competition that still remain.

Studies by the Economics Policy Working GroupSoil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa quantified the financial returns, farmer perceptions and adoption patterns of Integrated Soil fertility Management Technologies-ISFMTs developed under farmer-managed conditions. This review presents finding of selected case studies on factors influencing the adoption of ISFMTs in Zimbabwe and Malawi and draw implications for Zambia and Mozambique The studies employed economic financial and econometric analytical tools. The results showed that ISFMTs examined have modest financial returns which depended on the end-use and marketability of the outputs associated with the practices, valuation of the biomass advantages in building soil fertility. The perception and risk aversion behavior of farmers and prevailing input and out marketing environment significantly affect the financial viability of ISFMTs. Although some ISFMTs make a very significant contribution to soil fertility, their ease of adop...

The Shellpot Bridge is a 536-foot swing bridge located on a rail freight bypass route around Wilmington, Delaware. When the bridge failed in 1994, Conrail, then the bridge’s owner, elected not to repair it due to declining freight volume. The State of Delaware reached agreement with the new rail owner, Norfolk Southern Corporation, to provide funds to repair the bridge, with the railroad to pay tolls to repay the state’s investment. Recent volumes of traffic over the bridge indicate that, if traffic continues at its current level, Delaware will realize an annual return of 9.75% on its investment.

This paper analyzes the relationship between intellectual property and the different types of proximity in networks of geographic museums in Colombia. For this, we applied a survey to nine territorial networks that are made up of 237 museums. The analyze include the use of different kind of visualization of correlations between variables and agents (in this case, museum networks), the iconography of correlations and the weighted graphs. Among the main findings are that (i) IP protection is independent of the types of proximity that museums and museum networks face; (ii) museum networks do not have the culture of registration of new creations or distinctive signs.

Economic concentration in the Pampeana region: The case of the financial trustfunds Resumen Durante la última década del siglo XX, la producción agropecuaria de la región pampeana ve reforzada su tendencia a la concentración económica, reduciéndose de forma muy significativa el número de EAPs. Si bien no existen relevamientos censales que den cuenta de lo ocurrido tras la crisis de 2001-2002, numerosos indicios señalan que este proceso continúa en la actualidad. Aparecen como protagonistas del mismo grandes capitales arrendatarios que logran, al tomar superficies lo suficientemente amplias, obtener economías de escala que les permiten desplazar a rivales menores merced a su posibilidad de ofrecer arriendos superiores. En este artículo se ofrecen los resultados de una investigación sobre una de las formas jurídicas que adopta este proceso: la constitución de Fideicomisos Financieros. Esta ha sido una herramienta financiera de muy alto crecimiento desde 2004, y parcialmente se ha volcado al sector agrario. Luego de compilar la información sobre la totalidad de FF colocados en el período 2004-2008, se procedió a tipificarlos, con especial atención en aquellos que financiaron al agro. Se estimó así el peso que han tenido en su capitalización, y se analizan las estrategias y características productivas de aquellos que tienen por objeto la siembra en campos de terceros, lo que permite aportar cifras concretas sobre la base microeconómica de la concentración económica en este sector. Palabras claves: fideicomisos financieros agropecuarios; concentración económica.

Historical Trends As Digital Cross-Connect Systems (DCSs) have been introduced into digital core transport networks over the past 25 years, the rate of the core transmission speed has traditionally been about 20 to 40 times the rate of the core "switching" (cross-connect) rate. 1 DS0 (64 kb/s) signals were switched when core transport systems were on the order of DS1 signals (1.5 Mb/s); similarly, DS1 signals were switched within DS3 (~45 Mb/s) signals. Most recently, DS3 signals were switched with DCSs when the core transmission speeds were on the order of 1.5 Gbps to 3 Gbps (~STS-48). Now, when the core transmission speeds are on the order of multiple 10Gbps wavelengths, by historical analogy the rate of core transport switching should be on the order of an STS-48 (2.5Gbps). Current Networks Client devices are now being produced and installed with interfaces at the rates of 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps. 2 As these devices are deployed more frequently, it makes sense that these customer interface rates also 825 National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference 2002 Technical Proceedings