The Mechanism Behind Urban Population Growth and Shrinkage from the Perspective of Urban Network Externalities

Urban shrinkage is a global phenomenon,and it will coexist with urban growth for many years.At the same time,the network connection between cities continuously improved due to the construction of the transportation and information networks.However,the relationship between urban network externalities and urban population growth/shrinkage remains unclear.Therefore,based on high-speed railway(HSR)flow data,a spatial econometric model is used to explore the mechanism behind urban population growth and shrinkage from the perspective of network externalities in China.The results indicate that:1)the urban network experiences a certain clubbing effect.Growing cities that are strongly connected are concentrated along China’s main railway lines and the southeastern coastal areas,while shrinking cities that are weakly connected are distributed at the periphery of the network.2)Moreover,the network externality disregards spatial distance and together with the agglomeration externality influences the growth and shrinking of cities.3)Urban economic development still promotes the development of Chinese cities.However,the improvement of the urban economy has a negative cross-regional spillover effect on neighboring cities due to urban competition.4)Lastly,Local spillovers of urban network externalities are positive,while cross-regional ones are negative.Consequently,the government needs to promote the construction of multi-dimensional network connections between cities to promote cities’sustainable development.This study reveals the relationship between urban network externalities and urban development,enriches the theories of network externalities and urban growth/shrinkage,and provides a reference for regional coordinated development.

Behavior Analysis of Bank into E-Commerce under Network Externalities

With the advent of Internet financial innovation,many commercial banks quietly have started to enter into the Ecommercial in order to prevent oligarchs from eroding financial market.From the perspective of industrial division,this paper reveals the nature of a phenomenon that E-commercial enterprises and banks have stepped into each other's field,which E-commerce of banks can give full play to network effects.Then it uses game theory to analyze the motions of banks to involve into E-commerce and the short-term competitive equilibrium of large incumbent Ecommercial enterprises as well.For individual rationality,the dominant strategy of banks and E-commercial enterprises is(enter,counterattack).Considering network externalities,it constructs a competing model on banks and incumbent E-commercial enterprises and simulates competitive trends and balanced results of their behaviors,which illustrates that banks can obtain network effect after choosing E-commerce strategy.

Evolution of Industrial Competitiveness Based on Evaluation of Urban Competitiveness of Dongguan City:A Case Study of Songshan Lake High-tech Zone

Based on the theoretical system of urban competitiveness,the evaluation model of urban competitiveness from the perspective of competition and cooperation was established.According to the significance index and explanatory index,the urban competitiveness was divided into urban comprehensive competitiveness(UC),urban internal node competitiveness(NC)and external competitiveness of urban network(EC).The scores and rankings of UC,NC and EC in 2006,2010 and 2015 were obtained by conducting the comprehensive evaluation of the urban competitiveness of Dongguan City with integrated usage of the principal component analysis and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution and the data of other 20 cities in Guangdong province,Hong Kong and Macao.The research showed that the competitiveness of Dongguan City has been greatly improved during the decade of 2006–2015,and the regional cities in Guangdong Province had significant differences,which are reflected in the two dimensions of urban internal node competitiveness(NC)and external competitiveness of urban network(EC).Based on this,this study further analyzed Dongguan’s urban competitiveness from two dimensions of NC and EC,and took Dongguan Songshan Lake High-tech Zone as an example to study how to promote Dongguan’s urban competitiveness from the industrial level.

Optimal adoptions of freemium version and patching strategy:Network and security externalities

The freemium pricing model has become mainstream in the software industry.A large user base can induce positive network effects while expanding security risks associated with unpatched users.This study explores a two-stage decision problem faced by software vendors that involves a freemium versioning strategy and a subsequent security-patching strategy when taking both the positive network externality and negative security externality into consideration.It is noteworthy that a joint effect of the two externalities on the vendor’s management decisions exists.First,we analytically derive three patching strategies for the vendor:PS_(1)(rebates all users),PS_(2)(rebates only freeware users),and PS_(3)(rebates no users).Our results indicate that,if the strength of the positive network externality is relatively low,the optimal security-patching strategy will be significantly affected by the negative security externality.Specifically,when the intensity of the negative security externality is low,the vendor’s optimal patching strategy will be PS_(1).However,with the increase in the negative security externality,the optimal patching strategy changes to PS_(2) and then to PS_(3),whereas the strategy spaces of PS_(1) and PS_(2) decrease in the positive network externality to zero.Nevertheless,if the strength of the positive network externality is relatively high,the vendor is better off selecting PS_(1) when the negative security externality is low.However,when the negative security externality is high,PS_(3) is optimal.Furthermore,based on optimal patching strategies,we reveal the optimal conditions required for the vendor to adopt the freemium model compared with commercial only.Of interest,we find that the vendor adopting the freemium version is also influenced by the interaction of the two externalities.Finally,through numerical experiments,we find that the vendor and social planner’s interests can be aligned under certain conditions.However,this is not always the case.

Service Pricing Decision of E-Commerce Supply Chain Members Considering Diseconomies of Scale and Network Externalities

Considering diseconomies of scale and network externalities in the e-commerce supply chain(ECSC),we construct an e-platform-led benchmark model and derive the optimal decisions.Then,the model is extended by endogenizing the impact of service level on network externalities.Considering service investment that includes fixed and variable investments,the model is further extended.Comparing the extended models with the benchmark model,we found the following conclusions.Although the e-platform dominates the ECSC,its profit is lower than the manufacturer.The corporate profits,service level,and price increase with network externalities.Increases in diseconomies of scale decrease the corporate profits and service level,but increase the price.A high-quality service combined with network externalities can achieve synergy and improve the e-platform’s economies of scale,further generating a higher profit.Improving network externalities promotes the fair profit distributionin ECSC and achieves stable development.