Economies of the Internet

The papers in this issue of First Monday were originally presented as a series of panels at the Association of Internet Researchers 2015 conference in Phoenix, Arizona. This short introduction explains the impetus behind the organization of these panels-- which was to document diversity in approaches to the study of internet economies-- and briefly introduces each paper by locating them in the nexus between political economy and cultural studies

Bridging the digital divide - how enterprise ownership and foreign competition affect Internet access in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Many observers attributed the rapid productivity growth observed in the United States in the mid- to late 1990s, to the growing use of information, and the Internet. This in turn created concern that developing, and transition economies - where use of information technology, and the Internet was less widespread - would be left behind as productivity, and growth accelerated in technologically advanced countries, and stagnated elsewhere. Using enterprise-level data from twelve transition economies, the author looks at factors that affect whether enterprises in these countries are connected to the Internet. He finds that foreign-owned enterprises are more likely to have Internet access than other enterprises. And that employee-owned enterprises are less likely to have access. Even after controlling for other factors that might affect Internet connectivity, the quality of a country's telecommunications infrastructure appears to have a significant effect on the likelihood that an enterprise in that country has Internet access. Reducing corruption, and taking other steps to improve the business environment, would benefit domestic economies, even if Internet access had little short-term impact on productivity, or growth.General Technology,Knowledge Economy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,General Technology,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Knowledge Economy

The relationship between the adoption of Internet banking and electronic connectivity: - An international comparison

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the adoption rate of Internet banking and electronic connectivity. Electronic connectivity is measured using three components: personal computer connectivity, Internet connectivity and mobile phone connectivity. Regression is used to analyse these relationships for a sample of developed and developing economies. The results indicate that changes in electronic connectivity, however defined, have a significant impact on the adoption rate of Internet banking. The most significant influence on the adoption rate of Internet banking would appear to be the increase in the percentage of the population owning personal computers.Internet banking; Electronic connectivity; Information technology

A Service based Development Environment on Web 2.0 Platforms

Governments are investing on the IT adoption and promoting the socalled e-economies as a way to improve competitive advantages. One of the main government’s actions is to provide internet access to the most part of the population, people and organisations. Internet provides the required support for connecting organizations, people and geographically distributed developments teams. Software developments are tightly related to the availability of tools and platforms needed for products developments. Internet is becoming the most widely used platform. Software forges such as SourceForge provide an integrated tools environment gathering a set of tools that are suited for each development with a low cost. In this paper we propose an innovating approach based on Web2.0, services and a method engineering approach for software developments. This approach represents one of the possible usages of the internet of the future

INTERNET RETAIL IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS

This study investigates Internet retailers in a developing country. It aims to investigate the characteristic of business profiles and operations, and to describe performance measurement implemented and its use. Internet-based research was adopted by combining a questionnaire email survey with web content analysis to study Indonesian Internet retailers. The results show that the majority of Indonesian Internet retailers are immature, small size, and without store-presence. The business operation practices, such as ordering, payment, and communication, indicate some differences from those in developed economies. Though Indonesian Internet retailers are still immature, they have measured various aspects of business performance. Those measured more performance indicators are likely to use the information more intensively to support decision making. This study has limitations such as the small number of responses, which might prevent the generalization of the results. The findings could be used by local Internet retailers to improve the business operations and performance measurement, as well as global Internet retailers entering Indonesian market to adopt some local operation practices

Internet Access, Spillover and Regional Development in China

Journal ArticleAs Internet access grows at different rates across regions, the Internet has had variable effects on regional economies through agglomeration and spillover effects. This paper uses province-level panel data from 2000 to 2013 to study inequality in Internet access, its spatial effect on regional economies in China and the channels through which the spillover effects are most evident. We find that the Internet has dispersed quickly from core cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, to coastal provinces; and has had increasingly significant effects on neighboring regions. However, the Internet speed is still comparatively low outside the core cities. We then use endogenous growth models to quantify the effect of Internet access on regional economies. Our results show that, while Internet dispersion is positively associated with economic growth, the spillover effect varies significantly by region and is more pronounced in developed regions. So is the effect of the science and technology environment. Developed regions have benefited the most in the process. The three channels of spillover are listed here in order of relative significance: economy, proximity and urbanization. The spillover effect of the Internet may lead to the divergence of regional economies, working against the national goal of reducing regional inequalit

A Model of Quantum Economic Development

Quantum Economic Development (or the QED MODEL) is an entirely new field of theoretical economic conceptualisation into the evolutionary end point of the New Global Economy. A full description of the process of forming a kernel of fundamental 'quantum like' logic of the architecture and mechanics of these totally new quantum economies is included, as well as some of the more urgent and suggested effects on Humanity. The interdisciplinary boundaries of Free Market Economics and Quantum Physics have been dissolved through conceptual multi-dimensional and multi-scalar relationships and by constructing a model to explain how these systems could work for a global society of up to one hundred billion market participants. Light speed and internet based virtual economies (mostly corporate in nature) are on our combined global event horizon. This paper is prepared for global Academic, Business, Community and Development leaders to understand the basics of Quantum State Economies and their eventual march toward 'Economic Fusion' sometime in this first half of this century. These virtual economic environments spanning the global may allow us for the first time to meet the basic criteria of a free market economy and simultaneously the pre-engineering of the light speed evolution of ideas to their commercial manifestation. As we now learn from present economic malfunctions, phenomena that were once regarded as only concepts, are being created by the en masse interactions of market forces and energies that may begin to act according to ‘quantum like’ relationships. A vital paper for decision makers of all walks of life.qed, theorem, model, quantum, economic, development, new, gobal, economy, economies, light, speed, e-commerce, internet, mass, markets, interactive, trading, einstein, smith, wealth, nations, government, intervention,universal, currency, units, business, templates, forces, energies, fusion, fission, force, belonging, developing

Exploring the Memory-Bandwidth Tradeoff in an Information-Centric Network

An information-centric network should realize significant economies by exploiting a favourable memory-bandwidth tradeoff: it is cheaper to store copies of popular content close to users than to fetch them repeatedly over the Internet. We evaluate this tradeoff for some simple cache network structures under realistic assumptions concerning the size of the content catalogue and its popularity distribution. Derived cost formulas reveal the relative impact of various cost, traffic and capacity parameters, allowing an appraisal of possible future network architectures. Our results suggest it probably makes more sense to envisage the future Internet as a loosely interconnected set of local data centers than a network like today's with routers augmented by limited capacity content stores.Comment: Proceedings of ITC 25 (International Teletraffic Congress), Shanghai, September, 201

The Business Model Handbook for Developing Countries

The Business Model Handbook (BMH) for developing countries is a proposition for a tool that has the goal to help Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) and local entrepreneurs to design business models that use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and particularly the Internet in the context of developing economies. It shall help to develop the urgently needed critical mass of knowledge workers, technology users, and motivated entrepreneurs in order to deploy ICT in businesses of developing countries. Never before the Internet it has been as easy to share and transfer knowledge in such an efficient and global way. The objective of this Paper is twofold. First it proposes a theoretical business model framework (BMF) which shall allow SMEs, but also motivated local entrepreneurs in developing countries to understand the most relevant business issues in the Information Society. The BMF gives special attention to the opportunities that arise out of the use of Information Technology (IT) and particularly the use of the Internet for businesses in emerging economies (i.e. e-commerce). The second objective, which is the introduction of the Business Model Handbook for Developing Countries, shall allow an efficient knowledge transfer of the concepts developed and illustrated in the BMF. Therefore, the BMH should be deployed as a Web based tool, which allows Users to navigate through the concepts and the corresponding real world examples (case studies) and easily learn about business opportunities.developing countries, e-business