Guest editorial: The economics of communication networks and systems

This Special issue on the "Economics of Communication Networks and Systems" brings together state-of-the-art research contributions that address major opportunities and challenges of economic and incentive issues in communication networks and wireless systems, using tools such as game theory, pricing, contract theory, mechanism design, with emphasis on new formulations, novel analytical techniques, and varied applications scenarios. It spotlights important new developments in the emerging area of economics of wired and wireless communication systems, which may fuel further developments and germinate a sense of community among researchers who work on network economics. For this Special issue, we received 90 manuscripts out of which 20 were selected to be included after a careful and thorough three round review process. Every submission received at least three reviews, and was assigned to one of the Editors for a closer look. Papers without consensus from the reviewers were assigned additional reviewers. Papers were selected based on their appropriateness for this Special issue and their technical merit. We had to turn down a number of good papers since they did not meet both of the above criteria. The 20 papers we have selected cover various sub-fields: (i) Network mechanism design, (ii) Social networks and incentives, (iii) Network resource allocation games of medium access, routing and flow control, (iv) Network security games, and (v) Non-cooperative communication theory.