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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Alexander Matros (University of Pittsburgh); Andriy Zapechelnyuk (Kyiv School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | An auction house runs a second-price auction with a possibility of resale through re-auctions. It collects listing and closing fees from the seller. We find the fees which maximize the revenue of the auction house. In particular, we show that the optimal listing fee is zero. Our findings are consistent with the policies of eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and other Internet auctions. |
| Keywords: | Internet auctions, auctions with resale, auction house, listing fee, closing fee |
| JEL: | D44 C78 D82 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kse:dpaper:3&r=ict |
| By: | Barrios, Salvador; Mas, Matilde; Navajas, Elena; Quesada, Javier |
| Abstract: | Factual evidence suggests that ICT-led growth and ICT-producing sectors are strongly localised geographically. Given that the nature of ongoing technological change and innovation dynamics has a strong local/regional component, public policies need to be designed at this level as well. However, little is known - if anything - of the regional impact of ICT. The present study documents the regional impact of ICT by mapping the location of the ICT industry in the EU25, analysing the volume and nature of ICT employment across European regions, identifying the determinants of EU regions’ attractiveness for ICT business location and, finally, assessing the contribution of ICT investment to regional growth and convergence. The study provides evidence for the prominent role played by the Computing Services sector in recent employment and skills' changes in the ICT industry, as well as for the emergence of new regional growth poles in the EU. Departing from traditional business models, this sector of activity presents relatively low sunk costs, especially in terms of physical capital requirement while having strong innovative and skills content, opening-up new opportunities for regional development in the EU. These factors also seem to explain much of the recent trends in ICT multinationals firms' location over the past decade. The study also shows that ICT capital investment tends to promote regional economic convergence. Regional policies aiming to promote regional cohesion must therefore consider ICT diffusion as a potentially important tool for the promotion of convergence throughout the EU. Importantly, ICT diffusion should also be accompanied by other policies and, in particular, policies aiming at improving education and skills levels. The study also shows that the absence of high ICT specialisation should not be seen as a major barrier to promoting the impact of ICT on regional development. |
| Keywords: | Information and Communication Technologica; European Union; Regions; Location; Employment; Qualifications Atractiveness |
| JEL: | R11 O3 |
| Date: | 2008–01–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6998&r=ict |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Philippe Aghion; Rachel Griffith; Fabrizio Zilibotti |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determinants of vertical integration. We first derive a number of predictions regarding the relationship between technology intensity and vertical integration from a simple incomplete contracts model. Then, we investigate these predictions using plant-level data for the UK manufacturing sector. Most importantly, and consistent with theory, we find that the technology intensities of downstream (producer) and upstream (supplier) industries have opposite effects on the likelihood of vertical integration. Also consistent with theory, both these effects are stronger when the supplying industry accounts for a large fraction of the producer’s costs. These results are generally robust and hold with alternative measures of technology intensity, with alternative estimation strategies, and with or without controlling for a number of firm and industry-level characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Hold-up, incomplete contracts, internal organization of the firm, investment, residual rights of control, R&D, technology, UK manufacturing, vertical integration. |
| JEL: | L22 L23 L24 L60 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:iewwpx:342&r=ict |
| By: | Sims, Martin |
| Abstract: | By examining the preparations for the 2007 ITU World Radio Conference (WRC-07) and associated developments this paper identifies practical examples of the market and technological pressures contributing towards a more liberalised approach to spectrum management. It argues that the need to find new spectrum for advanced mobile services (WRC-07 Agenda item 1.4), the growing orthodoxy on spectrum neutrality and the need to accommodate converging technologies are helping to undermine the stricter forms of command and control spectrum management. However, the need for global harmonisation of satellite frequencies and the international variation in rolling out digital terrestrial television place limits on this drive towards greater flexibility. |
| Keywords: | World Radio Conference; WRC-07; mobile; IMT; IMT-2000; satellite; broadcasting; spectrum liberalisation; mobile TV; DVB-H; WiMAX; technology neutrality; ITU Radio Regulations |
| JEL: | L96 L82 K2 L51 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:6910&r=ict |
| By: | Alessandra Cassar, ac; Mary Rigdon, mr |
| Abstract: | In this paper we focus on the interaction between exogenous network structure and bargaining behavior in a laboratory experiment. Our main question is how competition and cooperation interact in bargaining environments based on networked versions of the investment game. We focus on 3-node networked markets and vary the network structure to model competition upstream (multiple sellers paired with a monopsonistic buyer) and competition downstream (a monopolistic seller paired with multiple buyers). We describe two kinds of models of trust for such networked environments, absolute and relativized models, and use this structure to generate a general hypothesis about these environments: that information crowds in cooperation on the competitive side of the market. The experimental results support this hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | networks; trust; reciprocity; experiments; investment game |
| JEL: | L14 D00 C91 |
| Date: | 2008–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:7005&r=ict |
| By: | Viktor Winschel; Markus Krätzig |
| Abstract: | We present a comprehensive framework for Bayesian estimation of structural nonlinear dynamic economic models on sparse grids. TheSmolyak operator underlying the sparse grids approach frees global approximation from the curse of dimensionality and we apply it to a Chebyshev approximation of the model solution. The operator also eliminates the curse from Gaussian quadrature and we use it for the integrals arising from rational expectations and in three new nonlinear state space filters. The filters substantially decrease the computational burden compared to the sequential importance resampling particle filter. The posterior of the structural parameters is estimated by a new Metropolis-Hastings algorithm with mixing parallel sequences. The parallel extension improves the global maximization property of the algorithm, simplifies the choice of the innovation variances, allows for unbiased convergence diagnostics and for a simple implementation of the estimation on parallel computers. Finally, we provide all algorithms in the open source software JBendge4 for the solution and estimation of a general class of models. |
| Keywords: | Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) Models, Bayesian Time Series Econometrics, Curse of Dimensionality |
| JEL: | C11 C13 C15 C32 C52 C63 C68 C87 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2008-018&r=ict |
| By: | Silvestro Di Sanzo (Department of Economics, University Of Alicante) |
| Abstract: | Recent studies have showed that it is troublesome, in practice, to distinguish between long memory and nonlinear processes. Therefore, it is of obvious interest to try to capture both features of long memory and non-linearity into a single time series model to be able to assess their relative importance. In this paper we put forward such a model, where we combine the features of long memory and Markov nonlinearity. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed to estimate the model and evaluate its forecasting performance using Bayesian predictive densities. The resulting forecasts are a significant improvement over those obtained by the linear long memory and Markov switching models. |
| Keywords: | Markov-Switching models, Bootstrap, Gibbs Sampling |
| JEL: | C11 C15 C22 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2007_03&r=ict |