Path Dependence, its Critics, and the Quest for ‘Historical Economics’

By Paul A. David. 2005

655 citations recorded by the source corpus.

It is now widely acknowledged that institutions are a crucial factor in economic performance. Major developments have been made in our understanding of the nature and evolution of economic institutions in the last few years. This book brings together some key contributions in this area by leading internationally renowned scholars including Paul A. David, Christopher Freeman, Alan P. Kirman, Jan Kregel, Brian J. Loasby, J. Stanley Metcalfe, Bart Nooteboom and Ugo Pagano. This essential reader covers topics such as the relationship between institutions and individuals, institutions and economic development, the nature and role of markets, and the theory of institutional evolution. The book not only outlines cutting-edge developments in the field but also indicates key directions of future research for institutional and evolutionary economics.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management Science and Operations Research, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6af17b4aed899f2d8bd69bb284c6ae619ee43cef

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Citations in the corpus

The Historical Origins of 'Open Science': An Essay on Patronage, Reputation and Common Agency Contracting in the Scientific Revolution (2008, neutral): “…of the Bayh-Dole and Stevenson-Wydler Acts in the U.S., see e.g., Smith (1990), David, Mowery and Steinmueller (1994), Mowery et al. (2004), David (2004, 2005, 2007a), David and Hall (2006); Guston and Keniston (1994) on university relations with the federal government; Branscomb (1994),…”
A Search for Multiple Equilibria in Urban Industrial Structure (2008, background): “Recent major monographs in economic geography include Masahisa Fujita, Paul R. Krugman, and Anthony Venables (1998), Fujita and Jacques Thisse (2002), and Richard Baldwin et al. (2003). 2Cooper (2002) discusses issues of estimation and identification in the presence of multiple equilibria as well as”
Comparing theories of institutional change (2009, background): “guarantee convergence to a unique, globally stable equilibrium (David, 2007).”
Complex Causal Relations and Case Study Methods: The Example of Path Dependence (2006, background): “…Aminzade (1992) and Abbott (2001). considerations such as the efficiency of technologies or institutions in achieving public or private goods (see David 1985, 2001; Arthur 1989, 1994).3 Scholars have also drawn on other sources, including institutional sociology, which places emphasis on how…”
Creative Cities, Creative Spaces and Urban Policy (2009, background): “…theories (Mossberger and Stoker, 2001; Stoker and Mossberger, 1994), cluster and growth theories (Cooke, 2002; Porter, 2000), path dependency (David, 2000), symbolic and cultural theory ('habitus of location'; Lee, 1997) and the study of particular urban processes such as regeneration in its…”
Complexity and Empirical Economics (2005, background): “…since along such paths, one needs to carefully account for selection pressures, just as in any evolutionary context, in order to discuss the likelihood of 4 This is an issue raised in David (2000) but, as will be apparent, I believe it applies to all participants in the QWERTY controversy.”
UK Work/Family Balance Policies and Gender Equality, 1997–2005 (2007, background): “Second, despite the development of WFB policy, the content of many of the particular strands of that policy has been path dependent (David 2001) and incrementalist.”
The Place of Path Dependence in an Evolutionary Perspective on the Economic Landscape (2010, background): “David (2001, 2005, 2007) himself argues that path dependence is a property of a ‘wide array of processes that can properly be described as evolutionary’, including economic processes.”
Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes (2009, background): “There is however an alternative explanation grounded in the interaction between dynamic increasing returns of some kind, network externalities and path-dependency (cf. David, 1985; 1988; 2001b;and Arthur, 1988 and 1989).”
Evolution in Economic Geography: Institutions, Political Economy, and Adaptation (2009, background): “The second strand is associated with the concept of path dependence (Arthur 1989; David 1985).”