Tag Archive: networks

Urban Networks: Connecting Markets, People and Ideas

Are American-style megacities or European-style urban networks the best development path for urbanizing countries like China? Can Europe’s relatively smaller cities compete with the world’s megacities by improving the transportation and communication links between them? Edward Glaeser, Giacomo Ponzetto, and Yimei Zou develop a theory of the flow of ideas within and between cities and discuss the factors that may favor consolidation into a dominant megalopolis over the balanced growth of a network of smaller cities.

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To connect or not to connect? A tale of network access

If I call your Vodafone mobile from my Orange mobile, who should pay the cost of termination incurred by Vodafone? You, me, Orange or Vodafone? For that matter, which has the better business model – Europe with a “caller pays” system, or the US with an “everyone pays” system? Sjaak Hurkens and Angel L. López analyze an oligopoly of telecom networks to show how termination charges play a role in off-network usage and whether efficiency and profitability are achieved with current business models.

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