Glossary of economics research
Results of search for path dependency follow:
path dependency:
The view that technological change in a society depends quantitatively and/or
qualitatively on its own past. "A variety of mechanisms for the
autocorrelation can be proposed. One of them, due to David (1975) is that
technological change tends to be 'local,' that is, learning occurs primarily
around techniques in use, and thus more advanced economies will learn more
about advanced techniques and stay at the cutting edge of progress."
(Mokyr, 1990, p 163)
A noted example of technological path dependence is the QWERTY keyboard, which
would not be in use today except that it happened to be chosen a hundred years
ago. A special interest in the research literature was taken in the question
of whether technological path dependence has been observed to lead to
noticeably Pareto-inferior outcomes later. Liebowitz and Margolis in a series
of papers (e.g. in the JEP) have made the case that it has not -- that is that
the QWERTY keyboard is not especially inferior to alternatives in
productivity, and that the VHS videotapes were not especially inferior to Beta
videotapes at the time consumers chose between them.
Source: Mokyr, 1990, p 163
Contexts: stochastic processes; history
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