Patterns of a Network Economy — An Introduction

Abstract

The purpose of this book is to give a presentation of current theoretical and empirical research in the field which may be labelled “network economics”. The label reflects that concepts associated with networks and networking have recently gained considerable interest in economics as well as other sciences. We may thus speak of a new field of economics in emergence, although the roots of “network economics” originate from other fields of economics as well as a broader set of disciplines. One such source of inspiration is the group of studies associated with link formation between corporations and their subsidiaries, between suppliers and their customers, and the co-operation between agents in R&D projects, e.g. Williamson (1975, 1979), Johansson and Mattsson (1987), Lundvall (1988), Håkansson (1987). Another source, dealing with more aggregated links, may be found among studies of intra-industrial trade, such as Burenstam-Linder (1961), Grubel and Loyd (1975) or Balassa and Bauwens (1988). In the first case, the demand for variety and deeper specialisation in order to obtain temporary monopolies leads to the establishment of reciprocal links between suppliers and customers. Such links represent a network capital whose territorial extension is sensitive to internodal affinities and barriers. This introduces temporal rigidities and a spatial dispersion of flows which, at more aggregated levels, may be observed as a part of intra-industrial trade.