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BackgroundDifferences in contingent valuation (CV) estimates for identical healthcare goods can cast considerable doubt on the true economic measures of consumer preferences. Hypothetical nature of CV methods can potentially depend on the salience, context and perceived relevance of the good or service under consideration. Thus, the high demand elasticity for healthcare goods warrants careful selection of study population as the contexts of valuation significantly changes after experiencing health shock.MethodsIn this study, using triple-bounded dichotomous choice (TBDC) experiments, we test how negative health shock (namely, being diagnosed with refractive errors), can alter preference over a common health good (namely, corrective eyeglasses). We compared elicited WTP of diagnosed patients with a synthetically constructed comparable cohort without the same health shock, controlling for the possible self-selection using a number of matching techniques based on the observable socio-demographic characteristics.ResultsThe consumers diagnosed with vision problems exhibit a rightward shift in their demand curve compared to observationally identical consumers without such problems resulting in about 17% higher consumer surplus. The consumers without the health shock are willing to pay about BDT 762.4 [95% CI: BDT 709.9 - BDT 814.9] for corrective eyeglasses, which gets 15–30% higher for the matched with-health-shock consumers. Multivariable analyses suggest more educated and wealthier individuals are willing to pay respectively BDT 208 and BDT 119 more for corrective eyeglasses. We have tested the models for different matching protocols. Our results are fairly robust to alternate specifications and various matching techniques.ConclusionThe preferences for healthcare goods, such as eyeglasses, can significantly depend upon the respondent being diagnosed with refractive errors. Our findings have implications for general cost-benefit analyses often relying on WTP, which can vary depending on the contexts. There are also increasing interests in cost recovery models, which require understanding the demand for healthcare goods and services. We find eliciting the demand needs to consider the health status of the population from which the respondents are sampled.

Globalisation is associated with long periods of sustained economic growth and credit expansion, whereas major recessions tend to lead to falling trade and protectionism. I investigate this, using a model where an important component of trade is search by firms trying out new trade partners. To model this, I set up a schematic model of upstream-downstream matching between firms, where match quality determines profits. Prior to globalisation, Northern upstream and downstream firms work together, to avoid trade costs. As trade is liberalised, new North-South matches begin to develop, but at first these are footloose (since many are experimental in nature), and can be driven out rapidly if there is a demand crisis.

The mushroom development of social networks has brought opportunity to the analysis of social ad pricing. On the one hand, compare with traditional ad pricing, social networks advertising pricing (SNAP) enables greater consumer surplus and profits to social network companies; On the other hand, reasonable SNAP can provide guidance to network users and advertisers and coordinate the interests between bilateral participants to maximize their behavior. In this regard, using the methodology of bilateral market, this paper firstly analyzed the conduct of bilateral participants to maximize the benefits of social network companies. Secondly, the paper investigates the characteristics of bilateral markets and social networks comprehensively and proposes the Relation-Intensity Model (R-I model) to measure the strength of social relation to optimal ad asking price. Finally, the paper draws a conclusion that the SNAP increases along with the growth of the number of users at first and performs a downward trend after the number of users comes to a certain value (threshold). Thus, the paper explains that after exceeding certain amount of users (a higher network clustering coefficient), the price elasticity of demand of advertising is relatively large, lower price for the enterprise can realize higher profits, i.e. the scale effect of advertising exceeds its price effect.

Maybe you are beginning your study of economics with macro. Maybe you have studied microeconomics in the past, but it was a while ago, and you could use a refresher. Or maybe, whatever and whenever you did with micro, it didn’t leave much residue. If you fall into any of these categories, this chapter is for you. If you are confident of your knowledge in microeconomics, however, you can skip this and go right on to Chap. 3.

In Chap. 4 we saw that, according to the traditional economic worldview, the sole purpose of economic life is to produce goods for purchase by consumers. Producing the right goods in the right amounts, with the characteristics consumers desire, is what an efficient economy should be doing as much of the time as possible. Clearly, in order to translate this broad objective into specific policies we require a theory of the consumers themselves: what governs the choices they make and how their individual decisions in the marketplace affect their ultimate well-being.

Since the reform and opening up of China in 1978, China’s foreign trade volume began to increase year by year. Table 1.1 shows that, China’s total foreign trade volume saw an increase from 20.6 billion U.S. dollars in 1978 to 2.9728 trillion U.S. dollars in 2010. The data shows that China’s import trade volume has reached 1.3948 trillion U.S. dollars in 2010 which increased 128 folds compared with 10.9 billion U.S. dollars in 1978. According to the statistics, the increase rate of China’s export was more higher than that of import, and the export trade volume stood at 9.8 billion U.S. dollars in 1978, however, which soared to 1.5779 trillion U.S. dollars by 2010, an increase of 160 folds.

This chapter develops a two-period sales model to investigate the competitive effects of targeted advertising based on consumer purchase history. We find that, the firm’s ability of targeting may damage industry profits, consumer surplus and even social welfare. The conditions under which targeted advertising is positive or negative are derived, showing that competition is softened in the second period but intensified in the first period because of the anticipation behavior of competing firms. It is suggested that firms under competing environments cautiously initiate targeted advertising with appropriate contents.

The growth of the Web of Data (WoD) has primarily been funded by subsidies. New datasets are financed via public funding or research programs. This may eventually limit the growth and could hamper data quality for lack of clear incentives. We propose MaTriX, a market-based SPARQL broker over the WoD as an economically viable growth option. Similar to others, queries are associated with a budget and minimal result-set quality. The broker then employs auction mechanisms to find a set of data providers that jointly deliver the results. Preliminary results shows that mixing free and commercial providers exhibits superior: consumer surplus, producer profit, total welfare, and recall.

This chapter characterizes today’s online social networks (OSNs) and develops an interdisciplinary understanding of them. To this end, each discipline characterizes OSNs from its viewpoint, thus using different foci and laying the foundations for a common understanding. We conclude this chapter with a shared interdisciplinary view of OSNs by pointing out the similarities between the different viewpoints.

This paper considers the water supply, sewage treatment and the affordability of urban water users, the nonlinear water price model for urban water user is established, in which the objective function is maximum the total social surplus. The Lagrange multiplier method is used to solve the model. The relationship between the ratio of the local water supply and the water price of urban water users is discussed. At last, the numerical example of a city is given.

The transactions between supermarkets or agricultural trade markets and consumers are in the downstream of agricultural supply chain. China has seen a surge in the popularity of many supermarkets running fresh agricultural products such as vegetables. Some consumers buy vegetables in supermarkets instead of in agricultural trade markets. Consumers enjoy better shopping experience for the comfortable environment, credible quality and perfect service. Whereas, we also observe that pricing of vegetables in supermarkets is higher than in agricultural trade markets. Then, the target of this paper is to discuss how to fix the price in supermarkets so as to guarantee consumer volume and not go into the red. In this paper, we use the conception consumer surplus to explain the pricing strategic in supermarkets.

An optimization model for government subsidies in a R&D race considering ex ante licensing, ex post licensing as well as technology spillover is proposed in this paper. The general market equilibriums are searched for by backward induction, followed with ex ante and ex post licensing equilibriums considering technology spillover. Finally, combined with the R&D race equilibrium analysis, the equilibrium net social welfare is optimized. A numerical example is followed with the analysis about the impact of technology spillover on equilibrium consumer surplus and net social welfare.

The strength of most personal relationships is founded to a significant degree on the affection one person has for another.1 This is particularly true of the relationship between a man and a woman (but there is no reason that relationships have to be heterosexual). The relationship works for two reasons. First, each person is concerned about the welfare of the other and is willing to do things for him or her. In this sense the relationship is largely charitable in nature; each person is both a donor of gifts, broadly defined as any form of charitable expression, and a recipient of such expressions from the other.

This paper investigates the Mexican real estate market, especially the economy class homes. This sector plays an important role for Mexican social stability. Authors investigate the Cournot and Stackelberg Mixed Duopoly models where there is a competition between a state-owned public firm maximizing domestic social surplus, and a private firm, which maximizes its own profit. Such models are used for modeling markets with low number of participants and high impact of government.

In this study, we evaluate the effects of electric vehicle (EV) lanes in which only EV drivers enjoy the benefits of a reduction of travel time like the HOV lanes, and EV/Toll lanes whose charging system is similar to HOT lanes. The multi-class combined equilibrium model including a nested logit model to describe the traveler's behavior of each EV owners and non-owners is developed. The differences in service levels between EV drivers and non-EV drivers are not only a travel time under the special network for EV but also travel costs. If EV diffusion rate in the Nagoya metropolitan area is 10% and EV/Toll lanes are introduced, the incentive for owning EV is ensured, and the social surplus is improved than before the introduction of special lanes.

Uncertaintyis at the heart of insurance. This is already manifested in our limited knowledge about (observable) past events. In the “real” world all our activities depend on uncertain and unknown circumstances beyond the control of a single individual. Unambiguous, deterministic cause-effect relationships are replaced by ambiguity in the perception of the economic environment. With respect to the future, uncertainty looms still larger. However, it is possible to make forecasts about future events even with incomplete knowledge of past events.

An optimization model for government subsidies in a R&D race considering ex ante licensing as well as ex post licensing is proposed in this paper, under the assumption of a Bertrand duopoly with a linear demand function, and that the time required for a successful innovation is subject to Poisson distribution. The general market equilibriums are searched for by backward induction, followed with ex ante and ex post licensing equilibriums. Combined with the R&D race equilibrium analysis, the equilibrium net social welfare is optimized eventually. A numerical example is followed with the analysis about the effect of product differentiation on equilibrium consumer surplus and net social welfare. The model is proposed to be a theoretical reference for technology management strategy in reality.

It is well known that the ‘law of demand’ may fail in the case of inferior goods. It seems less appreciated that we can also have upward-sloping demand curves in other circumstances. This paper looks at cases in which demand refers to categories of goods that are close substitutes. Three situations are considered. The first concerns a quality differentiated commodity of which one variety is consumed. Examples of such products abound. The second situation refers to the use of a durable of which two units are present in the household. Cars are a natural example. The third concerns the long run demand curve for the use of a durable that is available in various qualities. One may again think of the car, but there are many other possibilities. In each of these cases economic theory does not exclude the possibility that demand functions are upward-sloping. Concrete specifications where this happens are provided.

In this paper we consider a market with switching costs that is initially served by a monopolistic incumbent. How can a competitor successfully enter this market? We show that an offer to undercut the incumbent by a fixed margin serves this purpose. This strategy dominates traditional entry where the entrant just offers a lower price because it restrains the ability of the incumbent to block entry by limit pricing. We also consider adding a price ceiling to insure customers against future price increases. This strategy turns out to be the preferable one for entering markets with elastic demand.

I study the recent Canadian advanced wireless services (AWS) li- cense auction in which 40 percent megahertz spectrum is set aside for new entrant firms in order to encourage the new entry. I show that spectrum set asides indeed result in inefficient allocation, since a new entrant firm (even though its valuation is lower than incumbents’ will- ingness to pay) will enter the market. Moreover, this inefficient entry further reduces social welfare. But under some circumstance, I prove that a spectrum set aside increases the seller’s revenue and consumer surplus. The simulation also gets the same result.

We model the interplay between capital accumulation for production and environmental externalities in a differential oligopoly game with Ramsey dynamics. The external effect is determined, alternatively, by sales or production. While the externality does not affect the behaviour of profit-seeking firms, it may induce a benevolent planner to shrink sales as compared to the Cournot-Nash equilibrium because of a tradeoff between consumer surplus and the externality, if the latter is driven by sales. If instead it is determined by production, there emerges that the Ramsey golden rule is no longer socially optimal.

What is a bank, exactly? All observers agree that a bank is unambiguously one among several types of financial intermediary . Such an intermediary is an institution that acts as a middleman in channeling funds from savers to entrepreneurs or other businesspeople who make capital investments or to individuals or families who purchase durable goods or tangible assets such as houses or condominiums. Savers who lend funds to financial intermediaries such as banks otherwise could have chosen to engage in direct finance by lending their funds to businesses or households without utilizing the intermediaries’ services. Instead, customers of banks opt to engage in indirect finance by lending their funds to banks and other financial intermediaries in exchange for promised flows of returns on those funds. Banks and other intermediaries aim to profit from revenues derived from lending net of costs they incur by engaging in financial intermediation.

A well-known result due to Vickery gives a mechanism for selling a number of goods to interested buyers in a way that achieves the maximum social welfare. In practice, a problem with this mechanism is that it requires the buyers to specify a large number of values. In this paper we study the problem of designing optimal mechanisms subject to constraints on the complexity of the bidding language in a setting where buyers have additive valuations for a large set of goods. This setting is motivated by sponsored search auctions, where the valuations of the advertisers are more or less additive, and the number of keywords that are up for sale is huge. We give a complete solution for this problem when the valuations of the buyers are drawn from simple classes of prior distributions. For a more realistic class of priors, we show that a mechanism akin to the broad match mechanism currently in use provides a reasonable bicriteria approximation.

One cannot possibly imagine present-day health care without pharmaceuticals. There are at least three reasons for this statement. (1) Pharmaceuticals represent a form of therapy that does not involve injuring or removing organs while permitting causal treatment (not only aimed at alleviating symptoms) in several instances. Chemotherapy, employed in the treatment of tuberculosis, is the historic example of such causal treatment; vaccination against the AIDS virus may become a future example.

Bidraget tager udgangspunkt i Lissabon-traktatens målsætning om bl.a. ved at stimulere entrepreneurskab at gøre EU til den mest konkurrencedygtige region i verden i år 2010. Artiklen diskuterer på denne baggrund betydningen af entrepreneurskab i relation til udnyttelsen af økonomiens kreative ressourcer i det hele taget. Med udgangspunkt i en relativt simpel, økonomisk model, argumenteres der for at der er behov for en mere sammenhængende analyse af hele dette problemkompleks. Modeleksperimentet antyder desuden, at en styrkelse af de institutionelle rammer omkring entrepreneurskab og innovation kunne bidrage væsentligt til opfyldelse af den langsigtede vækstmålsætning.

When entry of the relatively inefficient firms is deterred due to fixed costs, leading to a monopoly of the relatively efficient firm, guaranteed production quota for the less efficient ones can increase consumers' surplus. In other words, restricting the output of more efficient firm helps to reduce the price compared to the monopoly level. If the emergence of monopoly is independent of the level of fixed costs of the inefficient competitors, monopoly is the more efficient outcome. This has relevance for the recent entry of China in WTO and the abolition of export quotas in textiles. This also qualifies the conventional wisdom in the trade policy literature that quantitative restrictions are necessarily anti-competitive. The optimal policy can be to keep in place a quota but allow it to be licensed to the more efficient exporter.

In this paper, we investigate the welfare effects of transition from a single-service class to two-service classes in the Internet. We consider an ISP who offers network access to a fixed user base, consisting of users who differ in their quality requirements and willingness to pay for the access. We model user-ISP interactions as a game in which the ISP makes capacity and pricing decisions to maximize his profits and the users only decide which service to buy, if any. Our model provides robust pricing for networks with single- and two-service classes. Our results indicate that transition to multiple service classes is socially desirable, but could be blocked due to the unfavorable distributional consequences that it inflicts on the existing network users. To facilitate the transition, we propose a simple regulatory tool that alleviates the political economic constraints and thus makes the transition feasible.

Online markets for transportation services, in the form of Internet sites that dynamically match shipments (shippers’ demand) and transportation capacity (carriers’ offer) through auction mechanisms are changing the traditional structure of transportation markets. A general framework for the study of carriers’ behavior in a sequential auction transportation marketplace is provided. The unique characteristics of these marketplaces and the sources of difficulty in analyzing the behavior of these marketplaces are discussed. Bounded rationality, learning, and behavior in a sequential auction marketplace are analyzed and simulated.

We study the problem of hiring a team of selfish agents to perform a task. Each agent is assumed to own one or more elements of a set system, and the auctioneer is trying to purchase a feasible solution by conducting an auction. Our goal is to design auctions that are truthful and false-name-proof, meaning that it is in the agents' best interest to reveal ownership of all elements (which may not be known to the auctioneer a priori) as well as their true incurred costs. We first propose and analyze a false-name-proof mechanism for the special cases where each agent owns only one element in reality. We prove that its frugality ratio is bounded by n2n, which nearly matches a lower bound of Ω(2n) for all false-name-proof mechanisms in this scenario. We then propose a second mechanism. It requires the auctioneer to choose a reserve cost a priori, and thus does not always purchase a solution. In return, it is false-name-proof even when agents own multiple elements. We experimentally evaluate the payment (as well as social surplus) of the second mechanism through simulation.

Changes in consumer surplus have been approached in two different ways [1,2]: one is the compensating variation (CV), which is the amount of income that an individual is ready to pay to keep his utility as it was before a change; the other is the equivalent variation (EV), which is the amount of money the individual is ready to accept for the change. For welfare gains, CV and EV are known as willingness to pay (to attain the gain, WTP) and willingness to accept (to accept the absence of the gain, WTA) respectively; but for a welfare loss, CV and EV refer to WTA (to compensate the loss) and WTP (to prevent the loss).

In this paper, we handle a negotiation method in which a main negotiation consists of multiple sub-negotiations. In items allocation for commerce, there are some risks on the trade because the market balance is determined by supply and demand. The result of main negotiation is also determined by the order of sub-negotiations and agents' behaviors since agents' budgets have limitations on the actual commercial trading. However, it is difficult to decide the order of negotiations, such as simultaneous decisions and rotations. In this paper, we give the trading model in such cases, that is, agents purchase items by pooled buying. In actual trading as pooled buying, items are sold by the volume discount. Concretely, we discuss joint-stock company and private limited partnership on the web. In the negotiation phase, an agent proposes pooled buying based on the number of items and their prices considering their budgets. The degree of risks is calculated. All agents can see the risks with each item. Agents cooperate to the proposing agent based on the degree of risks. In this paper, we give two scenarios for trading. One is to avoid free riders who get surplus without risks. Another one is to promote agents' participation to increase social surplus. For risk aversion and promoting cooperation, we employ the side-payment policy, that is, cooperative agents' risks are preserved to a minimum. Further, we give some discussions where agents must pay the negotiation costs and charge for storage.

We revisit the problem of incentive-compatible interdomain routing, examining the quite realistic special case in which the utilities of autonomous systems (ASes) are linear functions of the traffic in the incident links and the traffic leaving each AS. We show that incentive-compatibility toward maximizing total welfare is achievable efficiently, and in the uncapacitated case, by an algorithm that can be easily implemented by the border gateway protocol (BGP), the standard protocol for interdomain routing.

Much work remains to develop reliable estimates of the economic effects of HABs. As this work proceeds, attention should be directed at the rationale for developing these estimates. While government officials and others might solicit economic estimates of any kind in order to justify idiosyncratic public health or scientific agendas, attention should be directed at developing estimates of true economic losses, i.e., surplus changes. Based upon our experience with the field, although the number of studies of economic losses or impacts is limited, they outnumber studies of the economic costs of societal responses to HAB events. In other words, societal responses to HABs have been debated, formulated, and implemented with an inadequate understanding of the net benefits of such responses. Further efforts on the economics of HABs should focus on identifying the array of societal responses and characterizing the cost minimizing combination of management actions.

We consider a problem of Web service resource allocation in an economic setting We assume that different requestors have different valuations for services and a deadline for executing a service, after which it is no longer required We formally show an optimal offline allocation that maximizes the total welfare, denoted as the total benefit of the requestors We then propose a bid-based approach to resource allocation and pricing for Web services Using a detailed simulation, we analyze its behavior and performance compared to other known algorithms We empirically show that flexibility in service price benefits both the provider in terms of profit and the requestors in terms of welfare. Our problem motivation stems from the expanding use of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for outsourcing enterprize activities While the most common method for pricing a Web service nowadays is a fixed-price policy (with a price of 0 in many cases), A Service-Oriented Architecture will increasingly generate competition among providers, underlying the importance of finding methodologies for pricing Web service execution.

In this paper we present a model where two interconnected network operators compete in linear prices in a market characterized by the existence of social connections among consumers, which are represented by a random regular graph. Assuming horizontal differentiation among operators, the customers select their network provider based on their preferences and the prices offered by the competing firms. In equilibrium the number of calls made to other agents depends on where they are located in the social network.

Next-generation wireless networks will enable the usage of different network technologies fully transparent to the user. Applications will be able to dynamically adapt to the conditions and technical constraints of the network. This vision requires a dynamic allocation of scarce network resources to different users. This paper presents simulation results from a model of admission control and dynamic resource allocation in wireless networks, in a two-provider, multiple-user scenario. The access allocation and connection procedure is implemented using an efficient (welfare maximizing) incentive mechanism for capacity allocation at both providers.

This paper investigates the long-run properties of chaotic dynamics in a Cournot duopoly market. To this end, it constructs a nonlinear, discrete-time Cournot model in which duopoly firms are heterogeneous and have nonlinear reaction functions with different microeconomic foundations. Due to the nonlinearity, the output adjustment process of the firms generates chaotic fluctuations. This paper demonstrates that for both firms, the long-run average profit along a chaotic trajectory can be higher than the profit at all possible equilibria when external effects on production are asymmetric. Further, it is proved that consumer surplus is also higher along the trajectory. The result thus indicates a possibility that from a long-run viewpoint, chaotic fluctuations can be Pareto-improving.

In order to manage congestion problems and allocate network resources, many researchers have studied Internet pricing over the last decade. However, much of their research results have been limited by their reliance on the over-simplified demand model, and are not intended for adaptation to emerging multiple class environments such as the Diffserv network. For example, user utility is generally represented by a logarithmic form that is related to unit elasticity demand, but is not effective in representing user demand in the real Internet service market. We extend a dynamic pricing scheme by generalizing a demand model and applying it to the multi-class Diffserv network; and develop a simulation framework to compare the engineering and economic performance of our dynamic pricing model to those of static pricing.

In any dynamic model of the economy with changing population, the latter should properly be one of the state variables of the system. It enters both in the maximand, at least under total utilitarianism, and into the production function in one way or another. If population growth is exponential and constant returns prevails, then a simple transformation to per capita variables can be used to eliminate one state variable, but this ceases to be true if growth is not exponential, as it obviously is not and cannot be. If the growth of population is exogenous, then introducing it into the system does not affect the optimal policy. However, if one asks whether the system is sustainable, in the sense of at least maintaining total welfare (integral of discounted utilities), then the criterion is that that the value of the rates of change of the state variables is non-negative, so that the shadow price of population becomes relevant. In this paper, we derive explicit formulas in a simple model, showing that the rate of growth of per capita capital is not the correct formula but must have another terms added to it. We also study the question under an alternative criterion of long-run average utilitarianism.

Product bundling describes an interdisciplinary problem of great importance. It can be used to tailor offers to the demand of consumer segments (marketing), it helps to tackle variety reduction management issues (production), it is based on consumer preferences (data analysis), and it needs combinatorial optimization as solution tool (operations research).

Privacy presents many puzzles. In particular, why is it eroding, given the high value people assign to their privacy? This extended abstract argues that there are strong incentives for decreasing privacy, rooted in the economic benefits of price discrimination. As a result, the privacy problem is unsolvable. The conflict between incentives to price discriminate and the public dislike of this practice will influence what security technologies are likely to succeed.

We claim that preferences of economic agents cannot be assumed given; rather, they are partly determined by the process of trade in the market, by information about the latter and so forth. In other words, preferences determine actions which, in turn, determine preferences. Thus classical tools of analysis such as the neo-classical utility function and the demand curve should be viewed merely as first approximations, which are too simplistic for many purposes.

This paper examines the properties of two Internet pricing systems - a flat rate and a usage-based pricing system - in terms of the social welfare, by generalizing the theory advocated by the scholars. This study contributes not only to the systematic generalization of the theory but also to the examination of the waste of resource innate in the flat rate tariff. We found that the superiority between the two charging systems with regard to the waste of resource is not decided by the generic features of the charging systems themselves but by the scarcity of network resource. In other words, the flat rate pricing is better when there is no limit in the supportable volume of network source. Otherwise, the usage-based pricing system is better in the respect of reducing the unnecessary waste of network resource.

We consider a firm acting strategically on behalf of its shareholders. The price normalization problem arising in general equilibrium models of imperfect competition can be overcome by using the concept of real wealth maximization. This concept is based on shareholders’ aggregate demand and does not involve any utility comparisons. We explore the efficiency properties of real wealth maxima for the group of shareholders. A strategy is called S-efficient (S stands for shareholders) if there is no other strategy such that shareholders’ new total demand can be redistributed in a way that all shareholders will be better off. Our main result states that the set of real wealth maximizing strategies coincides with the set of S-efficient strategies provided that shareholders’ social surplus is concave. Thus, even if a firm does not know the preferences of its shareholders it can achieve S-efficiency by selecting a real wealth maximizing strategy.

Until now, the world’s ICTs have been concentrated in high-income countries. For instance, it is estimated that only 10% of the revenues from telecommunication services comes from the 128 low- and lower-middle-income countries where 76% of the world population lives. Furthermore, unlike in industrialized countries, ICTs are heavily concentrated among the urban population in developing countries. The share of ICTs Infrastructure in rural areas in developing countries is low (e.g., 19% of the telephone lines), although 72% of the population in low-income countries live in rural areas.