Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T02:31:09.769Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An information perspective on path dependence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2010

ERIC J. HEIKKILA
ERIC J. HEIKKILA*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California, USA
*
*Email: heikkila@sppd.usc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This paper proposes an information perspective on path dependence. From this perspective, historical paths are important insofar as knowledge about them shapes current decisions, for better or worse. A key consideration is the extent to which relevant information is fully inscribed in the existing configuration of state variables, including organizational structures and institutional norms. Using a chess analogy, path dependency arises whenever a decision maker's ‘move’ depends not only upon existing state variables, but also knowledge of the path by which this configuration came about. This chess analogy is then extended to various institutional contexts such as legal expungement of criminal records, patient privacy rights, and corporate executive succession strategies. A formal notation is introduced to specify this definition more precisely, and to compare it with other perspectives on path dependency, such as lock-in effects, increasing returns to scale, ergodic equilibria, and generalized notions that ‘history matters’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 23 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © The JOIE Foundation 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arthur, W. B. (1989), ‘Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events’, The Economic Journal, 99: 116–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axelrod, R. (1997), The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration, Princeton, NY: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhaumik, S. (2005), ‘Tsunami folklore “saved islanders”’, BBC News, 20 January, available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4181855.stm [20 October 2009].Google Scholar
Bonabeau, E. (2002), ‘Agent-Based Modeling: Methods and Techniques for Simulating Human Systems’, Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, 99 (3): 7280–7287.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cannella, A. A. Jr. and Lubatkin, M. (1993), ‘Succession as a Sociopolitical Process: Internal Impediments to Outsider Selection’, The Academy of Management Journal, 36 (4): 763–793.Google Scholar
Choo, C. W. (1998), The Knowing Organization: How Organizations Use Information to Construct Meaning, Create Knowledge, and Make Decisions, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Coffey, J. W. and Hoffman, R. R. (2003), ‘Knowledge Modeling for the Preservation of Institutional Memory’, Journal of Knowledge Management, 7 (3): 38–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crouch, C. and Farrell, H. (2004), ‘Breaking the Path of Institutional Development? Alternatives of the New Determinism’, Rationality and Society, 16 (1): 5–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Datta, D. K. and Guthrie, J. P. (1994), ‘Executive Succession: Organizational Antecedents of CEO Characteristics’, Strategic Management Journal, 15 (7): 569–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davenport, T. H. and Prusac, L. (1998), Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
David, P. A. (2000), ‘Path Dependence, Its Critics and the Quest for “Historical Economics”’, in Garrouste, Pierre and Ioannides, Stavros (eds.), Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas: Past and Present, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, pp. 15–40.Google Scholar
Frenkel, T. R. (2000), ‘Criminal Record Expungement: The Fifth Circuit Addresses a Split in Authority Regarding the Modification of Executive Branch Records, Sealed Appellant v. Sealed Appellee, 130 F.3d 695 (5th Cir. 1997)’, Southern Illinois University Law Journal, 24: 627–643.Google Scholar
Funk, T. M. and Polsby, D. D. (1997), ‘Distributional Consequences of Expunging Juvenile Delinquency Records: The Problem of Lemons’, Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law, 52: 161–186.Google Scholar
Hansen, B. A. and Hansen, M. E. (2007), ‘The Role of Path Dependence in the Development of US Bankruptcy Law, 1880–1938’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 3 (2): 203–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, B. (1991), ‘Employment Discrimination: Another Hurdle for Cancer Survivors’, Cancer Investigation, 9 (5): 589–595.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hölzl, W. (2006), ‘Convergence of Financial Systems: Towards an Evolutionary Perspective’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 2 (1): 67–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurlychek, M. C., Brame, R., and Bushway, S. D. (2007), ‘Enduring Risk? Old Criminal Records and Predictions of Future Criminal Involvement’, Crime Delinquency, 53 (1): 64–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, M. (1997), ‘A Model, a Method, and a Map: Rational Choice in Comparative and Historical Analysis’, in Lichbach, Mark I. and Zuckerman, Alan S. (eds.), Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–41.Google Scholar
Mahoney, J. (2000), ‘Path Dependence in Historical Sociology’, Theory and Society, 29 (4): 507–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, J. (2001), The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in Central America, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Mandl, K. D., Szolovits, P., and Kohane, I. S. (2001), ‘Public Standards and Patients’ Control: How to Keep Electronic Medical Records Accessible but Private’, British Medical Journal, 322 (3): 283–287.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
North, D. C. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, D. C. (1991), ‘Institutions’, Journal of Economics Perspectives, 5: 97–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, S. E. (2006), ‘Path Dependence’,Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 1: 87–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (2000), ‘Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics’, American Political Science Review, 94 (2): 251–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santayana, G. (1906), The Life of Reason, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Sewell, W. H. (1996), ‘Three Temporalities: Toward an Eventful Sociology’, in McDonald, Terrance J. (ed.), The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 245–280.Google Scholar