We consider interruptible electricity contracts issued by a distributor of electricity, that allow for interruptions to electric service in exchange for either an overall reduction in the price of electricity delivered, or for financial compensation at the time of interruption. We provide an equilibrium model to determine electricity prices, based on stochastic models of supply and demand. In t...

In this study I analyze the implications of contractual innovation in verticallyseparated industries, using the example of the video rental industry. Prior to 1998, video stores obtained inventory from movie distributors using simple linear pricing contracts. In 1998, revenue-sharing contracts, which include inventory restrictions, were widely adopted. I investigate the effect of using revenue-...

Web Service orchestrations are compositions of different Web Services to form a new service. The services called during the orchestration guarantee a given Quality of Service (QoS) to the orchestrator, usually in the form of contracts. These contracts can then be used by the orchestrator to deduce the contract it can offer to its own clients, by performing contract composition. An implicit mono...

— Payments for environmental services programs use direct incentives to improve the environmental impacts of private land use decisions. An auction offers an approach to efficiently allocating contracts among least-cost landholders, which can improve the overall cost-effectiveness of the approach. However, experiences with auctions in developing country settings are limited. We compare the resu...

Internet and cloud based services involve electronic interactions that are normally regulated using service agreements (SA). Once an agreement between business partners is in place, a service can be monitored and/or enforced using an SA equivalent electronic contract. Because of the dynamic nature of such Internet and cloud based relationships, the rapidity at which electronic contracts are con...

Cycle-harvesting software on commodity computers is available from a number of companies and a significant part of the Grid computing landscape. However, creating commercial service contracts based on resources made available by cycle-harvesting is a significant challenge for two reasons. Firstly, the characteristics of the harvested resources are inherently stochastic. Secondly, in a commercia...

From the user’s point of view, the reliability of a software component depends on its environment as well as its usage profile. The environment of a component includes the external services invoked by the component and the hardware and software it is deployed on. The usage profile determines which services of the component are needed and describes all possible call sequences in form of a Markov...

INTRODUCTION In England, in 2006, new dental contracts devolved commissioning of dental services locally to Primary Care Trusts to meet the needs of their local population. The new national General Dental Services contracts (nGDS) were based on payment for Units of Dental Activity (UDAs) awarded in three treatment bands based on complexity of care. Recently, contract currency in UK dentistry is...

Service Oriented Enterprises (SOEs) are subject to constant change and variation. In this paper, the changes are considered from an economic perspective based on service culture notion. Once a change is implemented, the costs of some member services may increase, whereas the costs of some other services may reduce. We construct a game theoretic model trying to capture the possible conflicting i...

Web services orchestrations and choreographies require establishing Quality of Service (QoS) contracts with the user. This is achieved by performing QoS composition, based on contracts established between the orchestration and the called Web services. Typical QoS parameters include maximum query throughput, response time, security, and validity of the response. Usually, QoS contracts are stated...