From Network Microeconomics to Network Infrastructure Emergence

Abstract

This paper suggests that evolutionary models of network infrastructure in market economy can be derived from the underlying selfish behavior of users and providers of network services in the same way as non-equilibrium thermodynamics is derived from the underlying statistical physics of interacting particles. This approach may be useful for overcoming restrictions of existing models failing to account for the effect of the details of user/provider selfish behavior on the infrastructure evolutionary path. Network security considerations may be a part of this user/provider behavior. Our main assumption is that "almost perfect competition" keeps the system close to the "social optimum".