IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-031-35583-7_78.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Path Dependence

In: Handbook of Cliometrics

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas J. Puffert

    (LCC International University)

Abstract

Path dependence is the dependence of economic outcomes on the sequence of previous outcomes, rather than simply on current intentional action and exogenous causal elements. For a path-dependent process, economic explanation requires attention to the interplay of forward-looking optimizing behavior with the legacy of historical choices, events, and conditions. Sources of path dependence may include technical interrelatedness, irreversible investments, coordination costs, and various sorts of increasing returns. Influential or disputed cases of path dependence include the QWERTY keyboard, various information technologies, and railway track gauges. Path-dependent outcomes may be inefficient by some criteria but not by others.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas J. Puffert, 2024. "Path Dependence," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 2491-2517, Springer.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-35583-7_78
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-35583-7_78
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-35583-7_78. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.