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Session: June 27 th 1:00-3:00pm Economics and its Applicability to FIND Research. 1:00-1:15 Bill Lehr Importance of economics in network design 1:15-1:30 John Musacchio Market enabling architectures 1:30-1:45 Xiaowei Yang End-user choice in routing
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Session: June 27th 1:00-3:00pmEconomics and its Applicability to FIND Research 1:00-1:15 Bill Lehr Importance of economics in network design 1:15-1:30 John Musacchio Market enabling architectures 1:30-1:45 Xiaowei Yang End-user choice in routing 1:45-2:00 Aparna Gupta From packet to contract switching 2:00-2:30 Andrew Odlyzko On the economic viability of network architecture 2:30-3:00 ** Group Discussion: Comments, Other thoughts, where to next… **
Importance of Economics in Network Design William Lehr (wlehr@mit.edu) Communications Futures Program Massachusetts Institute of Technology NSF FIND PI Meeting Washington, DC May 30-31, 2007
Goal for Session • Introduction to how economics already being used in FIND • Explore opportunities for addl. cross-community communication • Engage outside research(ers) to advance FIND goals • Identify who is interested (or should be) • What to do next?? Explore how FIND computer science research community might better use/engage economics research in designing the NextGen Internet
Point of View… Pervasive computing 24/7 everywhere, unaware connected • Economics is important to network architecture/design, and likely to get more so… • (And, technical community will be more important to economic research framing policies for networks…) Economic interest in Internet will increase..design becomes strategic e.g., -- Standards wars (and industry research funding) -- Regulatory reform/liberalization -- Industry competitive dynamics, convergence, restructuring Internet matters to economy => Economists interested in Internet
Economics in the Net Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics) Study of systems involving interactions of intelligent goal-oriented agents (“rational”), or “Decision Science” when you have multiple actors in richly constrained environment (“optimization”). Internet will include/be (increasingly) characterized by: -- Distributed Intelligence (AI-enabled, autonomous agents) -- Decentralized management (No single planner) -- Conflicting agent preferences/goals Economics will be in the NET
Interest outside FIND? • Economists and others… • Hal Varian (UofC, Berkeley) • Jeff Mackie-Mason (Uof Michigan) • Shane Greenstein (Northwestern) • Preston McAfee (CalTech) • Ross Anderson (Cambridge U) • etc., etc…. • Related areas of interest… • Digital Rights Management (Greg Heileman) • Antitrust Policy and Net Metrics (kc Claffy, Emanuele Giovanetti) • Business models for ICT ValueChain (Charlie Fine, BT OpenReach) • Secondary markets for RF spectrum and trading (Bill Lehr, Doug Sicker) • etc. etc….
Some personal thoughts… • Computer scientists get importance of economics for… • Allocation of scarce resources via markets Price theory and decentralized coordination via markets (“prices” adjust to reflect value of resource) • E.g., lots of useful work on QoS mechanisms, User choice in routing, Optimal resource pricing…. • Game Theory is useful for strategic interaction Powerful analytic modeling tools • E.g., lots of work on decentralized management (Nash Equilibria) in resource games (QoS, ad hoc networking, secure networking, etc.) • Need to include in every research proposal that “project will produce significant economic and social benefits…”
But could use more attention to… • Institutional (and transaction) economics • Industrial Organization: interaction of firms and markets (Coase: why organize in firm instead of via market?) • Political economy: strategic behavior among institutions (Weingast: why do bureacracies produce outcomes they do?) • Law & Economics, Regulatory Economics, Welfare economics, etc. (see http://www.econlit.org/subject_descriptors.html) • Economic Incentives to participate complex/distributed systems • Economics of Commons • Information sharing/learning games (dynamic games) • Non-standard economics…evolutionary, experimental, etc. “Light-handed regulation” what are the minimalist rules needed? -- engineer the ecosystem for regulator with limited tools where most decisions made by markets (technical design should help) -- e.g., how will public policy “enforce” architecture?
SURVEY…. -- How interested in economics are folks? -- What issues important? -- How much do folks know? -- What to do next Give us your email if you want to be engaged on planning for future Email here Interested in answers & feedback on survey… use comment fields http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=UQ9z2_2bbr6PXNFgmUSvkoQA_3d_3d wlehr@mit.edu