Estimation of Critical Mass in the WWW Server Markets with Time Series Techniques

• Main Authors: Fang-Chen Lin, 林芳珍
• Other Authors: Yi-Nung Yang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/6n6qdv

碩士 === 中原大學 === 國際貿易研究所 === 91 === Network goods exhibit positive consumption externalities, which are widely recognized as network externalities. That is, the utility of each consumer increases in the total number of consumers purchasing the same or goods or services. Many previous studies pointed out that the critical mass often arose in network markets. The phenomenon of the critical mass states that the network size of a product which is greater than the critical mass will then prevail in markets. Otherwise, the product would probably disappear in markets or stay in a relatively low market share. From the view of time series approach, the critical mass phenomenon can be modeled as the threshold model (STAR). The monthly server survey during 1995-2003 shows that the market shares of some WWW servers remain small while others keep growing. The empirical dynamics of changes in WWW server markets are suitable to test the network externalities as well as the existence of critical mass. This study uses the STAR model to estimate the critical mass in top nine WWW server’s market shares. The results of this paper show there are significant structural changes in many WWW server products and the estimated results support our hypothesis on the network externalities and critical mass.