Economic and Institutional Implications of Blockchain

Blockchain technology has been raising enthusiasm over a variety of disciplines, from information technology and finance, to law and economics. Blockchain is a decentralized ledger, which facilitates trust and makes peer-to-peer transactions possible without a central third-party authority. Since 2008, cryptocurrency bitcoin has provided an example of how to implement a marketplace without a central authority by using blockchain technology . The fact that a broad range of economic and government activities rely on a centralized recording of the basic data of the economy makes this technology potentially significant. The utopian views of blockchain have argued that it will disrupt a wide range of markets by eliminating the need for intermediation. The objective of this thesis is to review the relevant literature related to the topic and provide a guide to what blockchain means in the field of economics. The published research is mapped through a three stage literature review, and based on this, it is organized in three main categories: monetary-, innovation- and governance-centred research. Even though the literature surrounding the topic is still in its infancy, the potential of blockchain technologies is recognized by the literature. From the monetary viewpoint blockchain gives unprecedented flexibility in designing the attributes of currencies in terms of supply, value and exchange. From the innovation viewpoint, blockchain can create both increased efficiency of existing markets but also profits through entirely new markets. From the governance viewpoint blockchain facilitates trust and can be instrumental in democratizing economy more towards peer-to-peer production and consumption. Rather than a single technology, blockchain should be understood as a part of a greater digital transformation. In this case, blockchain can play a role in unlocking the potential of digital commons as well as the sharing and platform economy through a decentralized, universal record-keeping system

Computational Challenges in E-Commerce

Economic and social sciences will drive Internet protocols and services into the future.Engineering and Applied Science

Proceedings of RSEEM 2006 : 13th Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets

Electronic markets have been a prominent topic of research for the past decade. Moreover, we have seen the rise but also the disappearance of many electronic marketplaces in practice. Today, electronic markets are a firm component of inter-organisational exchanges and can be observed in many branches. The Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets is an annual conference bringing together researchers working on various topics concerning electronic markets in research and practice. The focus theme of the13th Research Symposium on Emerging Electronic Markets (RSEEM 2006) was ?Evolution in Electronic Markets?. Looking back at more than 10 years of research activities in electronic markets, the evolution can be well observed. While electronic commerce activities were based largely on catalogue-based shopping, there are now many examples that go beyond pure catalogues. For example, dynamic and flexible electronic transactions such as electronic negotiations and electronic auctions are enabled. Negotiations and auctions are the basis for inter-organisational trade exchanges about services as well as products. Mass customisation opens up new opportunities for electronic markets. Multichannel electronic commerce represents today?s various requirements posed on information and communication technology as well as on organisational structures. In recent years, service-oriented architectures of electronic markets have enabled ICT infrastructures for supporting flexible e-commerce and e-market solutions. RSEEM 2006 was held at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany in September 2006. The proceedings show a variety of approaches and include the selected 8 research papers. The contributions cover the focus theme through conceptual models and systems design, application scenarios as well as evaluation research approaches

New actor types in electricity market simulation models: Deliverable D4.4

Project TradeRES - New Markets Design & Models for 100% Renewable Power Systems: https://traderes.eu/about/ABSTRACT: The modelling of agents in the simulation models and tools is of primary importance if the quality and the validity of the simulation outcomes are at stake. This is the first version of the report that deals with the representation of electricity market actors’ in the agent based models (ABMs) used in TradeRES project. With the AMIRIS, the EMLab-Generation (EMLab), the MASCEM and the RESTrade models being in the centre of the analysis, the subject matter of this report has been the identification of the actors’ characteristics that are already covered by the initial (with respect to the project) version of the models and the presentation of the foreseen modelling enhancements. For serving these goals, agent attributes and representation methods, as found in the literature of agent-driven models, are considered initially. The detailed review of such aspects offers the necessary background and supports the formation of a context that facilitates the mapping of actors’ characteristics to agent modelling approaches. Emphasis is given in several approaches and technics found in the literature for the development of a broader environment, on which part of the later analysis is deployed. Although the ABMs that are used in the project constitute an important part of the literature, they have not been included in the review since they are the subject of another section.N/

Sharing Economy – a Modern Phenomenon: The Emergence of Electric Scooters

Sharing economy has rapidly come into today’s society. Although the concept of sharing is not new per se, the modern form of the sharing economy has only recently emerged. The main idea in the sharing economy is buying an access to use resources instead of owning them—it enables a more efficient use of the existing resources. Sharing economy has two primary business models: peer-to-peer and business-to-peer. As known services, such as Airbnb, are based on the former, the latter includes the popular shared mobility service, electric scooters. This form of mobility has been integrated in the landscape of major cities in Finland, initially in the capital Helsinki. Given that the electric scooters have been present in news outlets due to the injuries related to their use, and also the variety of public opinions for and against, it is a relevant topic to conduct research on. The main purpose of the research is both to explore the earlier literature and create an appropriate framework to reflect the empirical research upon but also to investigate who participates in the sharing economy by using the electric scooters and why. The methodological choice for the empirical research was to perform a qualitative study by interviewing eight people living in Helsinki to gain insight on their general perceptions of the sharing economy, and also to clarify what are the most common motives and deterrents for the use the of electric scooters. On a general level, the most relevant categories were given for both motives (economic, social, convenience, environmental) and deterrents (trust, efficacy, social, sustainability) in the general context of sharing economy. Consequently, the results of the interviews were mirrored to those categories. The empirical results indicate that the interviewees perceive the concept of the sharing economy similarly—the fundamental purpose is positive, and the goal to use resources more effectively is welcomed. More specifically, users of the electric scooters mostly value the following attributes: they are a good alternative to public transportation, they save time, they are convenient, and they are widely available. In addition, the most common motives and deterrents are aligned with the main categories as for the sharing economy in general. Subsequently, the most frequently mentioned categories for the motives were convenience and environmental, whereas the most frequently mentioned categories for deterrents were trust and sustainability

Behavioral Biases in Marketing

Psychology and economics (the mixture of which is known as behavioral economics) are two fundamental disciplines underlying marketing. Various marketing studies document the non-rational behavior of consumers, even though behavioral biases might not always be consistently termed or formally described. In this review, we identify empirical research that studies behavioral biases in marketing. We summarize the key findings according to three classes of deviations (i.e., non-standard preferences, non-standard beliefs, and non-standard decision-making) and the marketing mix instruments (i.e., product, price, place, and promotion). We thereby introduce marketing researchers to the theoretical foundation of and terminology used in behavioral economics. For scholars from behavioral economics, we provide ready access to the rich empirical, applied marketing literature. We conclude with important managerial implications resulting from the behavioral biases of consumers, and we present avenues for future research

The Development Trajectories of Platform Businesses - Trust as an Enabler of Sharing Based Exchange

Sharing economy, an ecosystem where companies and individuals can extract value by redistributing, sharing or co-consuming existing assets, has become a significant business. Disruption has already occurred, and impacted consuming-based industries to the extent that some forecasts predict that sharing and collaborative consumption will result in fewer purchases and facilitate a shift from individual ownership to shared ownership or short-term rental. Trust is critical for sharing economy services enabled by Internet technologies, as in Internet customers cannot see the seller or service provider face-to-face, examine the merchandise physically or collect it upon payment. The objective of this research was to identify the most significant factors that contribute to trust building in order to enable sharing-based exchange. This research complements to the existing perspectives of trust building in online context and introduces trust-building strategies to the context of sharing. The research was conducted with multiple methods: The data were gathered through semi-structured thematic interviews with value-sharing platform experts and card-sorting approach with value-sharing platform users. Comparative analysis was performed in order to find possible misalignments and insights on trust factor from multiple viewpoints. The research reveals that consumer trust towards value-sharing platforms is built gradually. Initial trusting intentions include user’s motivation and interest towards the service in addition to positive prior web experiences. Further, trust is increased by quality factors of the service, such as, simple user interface, cultural awareness, service credibility, and third party assurance. Finally trust building leverages social capital, such as, reputation, and critical mass of users

Assessing and Remedying Coverage for a Given Dataset

Data analysis impacts virtually every aspect of our society today. Often, this analysis is performed on an existing dataset, possibly collected through a process that the data scientists had limited control over. The existing data analyzed may not include the complete universe, but it is expected to cover the diversity of items in the universe. Lack of adequate coverage in the dataset can result in undesirable outcomes such as biased decisions and algorithmic racism, as well as creating vulnerabilities such as opening up room for adversarial attacks. In this paper, we assess the coverage of a given dataset over multiple categorical attributes. We first provide efficient techniques for traversing the combinatorial explosion of value combinations to identify any regions of attribute space not adequately covered by the data. Then, we determine the least amount of additional data that must be obtained to resolve this lack of adequate coverage. We confirm the value of our proposal through both theoretical analyses and comprehensive experiments on real data.Comment: in ICDE 201