First Workshop on the
Economics of Networked Systems
(NetEcon06)

Call For Papers
First Workshop on the Economics of Networked Systems (NetEcon06)

June 11, 2006
Ann Arbor, Michigan

[get the CFP as a plain text file]

NetEcon merges two workshops held in previous years: P2PEcon (Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems) and PINS (Practice and Theory of Incentives in Networked Systems). The goal of the workshop is to promote a cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas on the role of game-theoretic and economic principles in the design and analysis of networked systems.

The influence of incentives is fundamental when the users of a system have competing interests and may behave selfishly. In particular, networked systems are often sustained by resources contributed and controlled by their participants, and their resources are consumed by individual user choice but are managed as a commons for the benefit of the group. Contexts of particular interest for this workshop include Internet routing and traffic control, peer-to-peer services, distributed hosting platforms (utilities or grids), and wireless mesh networks.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • incentives and disincentives for cooperation in networked systems
  • empirical studies of strategic (or non-strategic) user behavior
  • strategic models and solution concepts for networked systems
  • distributed algorithmic mechanism design
  • economics of on-demand computing
  • payment and currency systems
  • reputation, trust, and anonymity vs. accountability
  • economic influences on network structure
  • network externalities and scale economies
  • public goods and club formation
  • accounting and settlement mechanisms
  • disruption and countermeasures for peer-to-peer content sharing

The workshop will be held in conjunction with EC-06: ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce. The program will combine invited talks, paper presentations, and discussion. Authors should submit a position paper that expresses a novel or interesting problem, offers a specific solution, reports on actual experience, or advances a research agenda. Papers will be selected based on their originality, technical merit and topical relevance as well as the likelihood that they will lead to insightful discussions at the workshop. Accepted papers will be published on the workshop website. Submissions should be no more than 6 pages in length with 10pt fonts or larger. Submissions may include an appendix outside the page limit for review by the committee at its option.

Submissions due: March 27, 2006
There is a 48-hour "amnesty" to modify submissions uploaded by the deadline.
Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2006
Final papers due: May 29, 2006
Anticipated workshop date: June 11

Program Committee