Why Markets Could (But Don't Currently) Solve Resource Allocation Problems in Systems

Using market mechanisms for resource allocation in distributed systems is not a new idea, nor is it one that has caught on in practice or with a large body of computer science research. Yet, projects that use markets for distributed resource allocation recur every few years [1, 2, 3], and a new generation of research is exploring market-based resource allocation mechanisms [4, 5, 6, 7, 8] for distributed environments such as Planetlab, Netbed, and computational grids. This paper has three goals. The first goal is to explore why markets can be appropriate to use for allocation, when simpler allocation mechanisms exist. The second goal is to demonstrate why a new look at markets for allocation could be timely, and not a re-hash of previous research. The third goal is to point out some of the thorny problems inherent in market deployment and to suggest action items both for market designers and for the greater research community. We are optimistic about the power of market design, but we also believe that key challenges exist for a markets/systems integration that must be overcome for market-based computer resource allocation systems to succeed.Engineering and Applied Science

Privatization and Liberalization and the Transition To A Market Economy: The Former Soviet Union

International Relations/Trade,

Knowledge Collaboration: Working with Data and Web Specialists

When resources are finite, people strive to manage resources jointly (if they do not rudely take possession of them). Organizing helps achieve—and even amplify—common purpose but often succumbs in time to organizational silos, teaming for the sake of teaming, and the obstacle course of organizational learning. The result is that organizations, be they in the form of hierarchies, markets, or networks (or, gradually more, hybrids of these), fail to create the right value for the right people at the right time. In the 21st century, most organizations are in any event lopsided and should be redesigned to serve a harmonious mix of economic, human, and social functions. In libraries as elsewhere, the three Ss of Strategy—Structure—Systems must give way to the three Ps of Purpose—Processes—People. Thence, with entrepreneurship and knowledge behaviors, data and web specialists can synergize in mutually supportive relationships of shared destiny

Alternative Methods of Allocating Airport Slots: Performance and Evaluation

This study analyzes alternative methods of allocating scarce airport capacity (slots) among competing airlines. The findings are as listed below. 1. The method of allocating slots at airports can substantially influence the competitive structure and the efficiency of the air transportation industry. 2. The current method of allocating slots at the four high-density airports (the slot committee process) is inadequate in almost all dimensions of economic efficiency. • The allocations are very sensitive to the regulatory political climate. The current climate is fostering the following tendencies. • The process places downward pressure on the carriers with the largest number of slots at a given airport. • The process prevents the growth of large and medium-sized firms even if the economics suggest growth. • Entry is allowed independent of the efficiency of the entering firms and possibly at the expense of more efficient firms. • The ability of committees to coordinate operations at the systems level (the multiairport level) is not good. • The committee allocations are generally unresponsive to changing economic conditions. • The committees provide a forum in which possible anticompetitive agreements can be forged and enforced. • The committees provide no vehicle for the economic expansion of airport capacity. 3. The study surveys several alternative methods of allocating slots. From these a process is recommended with the following features. • A primary market for slots organized as a sealed-bid one-price auction operating at regular, timely intervals, • a computerized aftermarket with "block transaction" capabilities, • special provisions for small communities, • special provisions for changes in the definition of a "slot," • provisions requiring that the funds be used for expanding airport capacity, • the possibility of "negative bids" for off-peak periods at airports for which a "zero-sum" feature is appropriate, • sanctions to prevent the "non use" and/or monopolization of slots, • a gradual introduction. While this process has never been used to allocate airport slots, various aspects of it have been used successfully to allocate critical resources in other industries. It meets the goals of the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act and all experiences with the process within controlled environments suggest that the process will operate at economic efficiency levels near 100 percent. 5. The above process is recommended on the assumption that some problems can be solved which are not addressed in this study. The problem of how slots are to be defined is left open even though some guidelines are suggested. The funds from the sale of slots should be used to provide additional airport capacity. The study makes no recommendations about how this will be guaranteed. While the study recommends a vehicle for the establishment and maintenance of service to major hubs for small communities, no attempt was made to define such areas. 6. Among the options considered, aside from the one recommended, the one with the second most favorable features is a slot lottery with an aftermarket. This process itself involves several problems which are referenced in the text

Toward a process theory of entrepreneurship: revisiting opportunity identification and entrepreneurial actions

This dissertation studies the early development of new ventures and small business and the entrepreneurship process from initial ideas to viable ventures. I unpack the micro-foundations of entrepreneurial actions and new ventures’ investor communications through quality signals to finance their growth path. This dissertation includes two qualitative papers and one quantitative study. The qualitative papers employ an inductive multiple-case approach and include seven medical equipment manufacturers (new ventures) in a nascent market context (the mobile health industry) across six U.S. states and a secondary data analysis to understand the emergence of opportunities and the early development of new ventures. The quantitative research chapter includes 770 IPOs in the manufacturing industries in the U.S. and investigates the legitimation strategies of young ventures to gain resources from targeted resource-holders.Open Acces

Benefit-Cost Analysis of Environmental Projects: A Plethora of Systematic Biases

There are many reasons to suspect that benefit-cost analysis applied to environmental policies will result in policy decisions that will reject those environmental policies. The important question, of course, is whether those rejections are based on proper science. The present paper explores sources of bias in the methods used to evaluate environmental policy in the United States, although most of the arguments translate immediately to decision-making in other countries. There are some “big picture” considerations that have gone unrecognized, and there are numerous more minor, yet cumulatively important, technical details that point to potentially large biases against acceptance on benefit-cost grounds of environmental policies that have true marginal benefits greater than true marginal costs, both in net present value terms. It is hoped that the issues raised here will improve future conduct of benefit-cost analyses of environmental policies.benefit-cost analysis, environmental policy, decision making, choice behavior, public goods, willingness-to-pay, willingness-to-accept, precautionary principle, hedonic methods, sum of specific damages, health effects model, environmental perceptions

Proceedings Community Leader's Litter Control Workshop

PDF pages: 5

Radio Spectrum and the Disruptive Clarity OF Ronald Coase.

In the Federal Communications Commission, Ronald Coase (1959) exposed deep foundations via normative argument buttressed by astute historical observation. The government controlled scarce frequencies, issuing sharply limited use rights. Spillovers were said to be otherwise endemic. Coase saw that Government limited conflicts by restricting uses; property owners perform an analogous function via the "price system." The government solution was inefficient unless the net benefits of the alternative property regime were lower. Coase augured that the price system would outperform the administrative allocation system. His spectrum auction proposal was mocked by communications policy experts, opposed by industry interests, and ridiculed by policy makers. Hence, it took until July 25, 1994 for FCC license sales to commence. Today, some 73 U.S. auctions have been held, 27,484 licenses sold, and $52.6 billion paid. The reform is a textbook example of economic policy success. We examine Coase‘s seminal 1959 paper on two levels. First, we note the importance of its analytical symmetry, comparing administrative to market mechanisms under the assumption of positive transaction costs. This fundamental insight has had enormous influence within the economics profession, yet is often lost in current analyses. This analytical insight had its beginning in his acclaimed early article on the firm (Coase 1937), and continued into his subsequent treatment of social cost (Coase 1960). Second, we investigate why spectrum policies have stopped well short of the property rights regime that Coase advocated, considering rent-seeking dynamics and the emergence of new theories challenging Coase‘s property framework. One conclusion is easily rendered: competitive bidding is now the default tool in wireless license awards. By rule of thumb, about$17 billion in U.S. welfare losses have been averted. Not bad for the first 50 years of this, or any, Article appearing in Volume II of the Journal of Law & Economics.