EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Predicting internet commercial connectivity wars: The impact of trust and operators’ asymmetry

D’Ignazio, Alessio and Emanuele Giovannetti
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Alessio D'Ignazio

International Journal of Forecasting, 2015, vol. 31, issue 4, 1127-1137

Abstract: Early studies on forecasting the growth of the Internet suggested that its evolution could not be predicted as being simply the result of a random network formation process. Recent evidence has shown that commercial connectivity goes through cycles, due to providers regularly disconnecting their customers. We model these cycles as being a result of the providers’ limited ability to monitor their customers’ contractual compliance. Based on twelve years of quarterly observations, we estimate the impacts of key covariates on the probability of starting a connectivity war. Following a choice model approach, we use different econometric specifications to test the model implications. Our results predict that the asymmetry between customers and providers, which increases the incentives to abuse connectivity, and the history of past connections, which affects mutual trust and information asymmetries, are the main factors in determining the probability of providers starting a connectivity war, thus helping to explain the cycles that are observed in Internet connectivity.

Keywords: Internet; Trust; Cooperation; Cycle; Asymmetric information; Connectivity wars (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207015000436
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intfor:v:31:y:2015:i:4:p:1127-1137

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2015.03.007

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Forecasting is currently edited by R. J. Hyndman

More articles in International Journal of Forecasting from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:31:y:2015:i:4:p:1127-1137