Initially, the notion of a business case for cloud computing seemed almost redun- dant. It seemed to me that the cost savings associated with cloud computing were self-evident and therefore no further explanation was needed. Based on my conver- sations with people in the industry—consumers, providers, and manufacturers of IT goods and services—cloud adoption appeared to be a foregone conclu…
I’m not a historian. Nor am I a pirate. I’m an economist with a long-standing interest in privately created law and order who happened to wonder one day how pirates cooperated since they had no government. Like many others, my interest in pirates goes back many years. I went to Disney World when I was eight; Pirates of the Caribbean was my favorite ride. My parents bought me a “silver” …
The subject of financial markets is fascinating to many people: to those who care about money and investments, to those who care about the well-being of modern society, to those who like gambling, to those who like applications of mathematics, and so on. We, the authors of this book, care about many of these things (no, not the gambling), but what we care about most is teaching. The main reason…
This is an electronic version of the print textbook. Due to electronic rights restrictions, some third party content may be suppressed. Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. The publisher reserves the right to remove content from this title at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. For valuable informa…
This text is part of the subject matter of the course on Basics of Traffic Engineering (H111) taught to the students in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven (Belgium). The text is intended to introduce the student to some elementary principles of transport economics and may serve as a stepping stone to more advanced courses. This is a preliminary version …
In a series of recent writings we have sought to re-open a debate over the economics of socialism. We have argued that the collapse of the Soviet system does not necessitate the conclusion that all forms of socialist economy are doomed to inefficiency. Updating and extending a line of reasoning found in Lange (1967) and Johansen (1977),1 we have claimed that modern information technology permit…