Paul David (1985), Brian Arthur (1989) and others introduced a 'new economics' of increasing returns, alleging problems of path dependence and lock-in. These conditions were claimed to constitute market failure and were soon featured in antitrust actions, most famously in Microsoft. We (1990,...

This paper examines the history of the QWERTY typewriter keyboard, often put forward as the archetypical case of markets choosing the wrong standard. Contrary to the claims made by Paul David and Brian Arthur, we find virtually no evidence to support a view that QWERTY is inferior to DVORAK....

The case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, which sought to have the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA, aka Sonny Bono Copyright Act) found unconstitutional, was recently argued before the Supreme Court. A remarkable group of seventeen economists including five Noble laureates, representing a wide spectrum...

Do economies and markets make remediable errors in the choice of products? Does the economy "lock-in" to these incorrect choices even when the knowledge that these choices are incorrect is readily available? The literature of path dependence may be understood to argue that these lock-ins and...

This paper examines the economic logic underlying bundles and tie-in sales and uses the lessons learned from that examination to analyze seven specific instances of bundling that have been the subject of antitrust scrutiny or other policy initiatives. We are particularly interested in products...

The influential piracy paper by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, although mainly based on proprietary data, contained an “important complement” to the main results, consisting of four "quasi-experiments" using publicly available data. This replication examines all of these...

The influential piracy paper by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, although mainly based on proprietary data, contained an “important complement” to the main results, consisting of four “quasi-experiments” using publicly available data. This replication examines all of these...

Owners of infringed trademarks and copyrights can be awarded the defendant's profits from the infringement. The statutes are silent on the definition of profits, and the federal Courts of Appeals split on how profits are computed. In the Second Circuit, a 1939 decision written by Judge Learned...

The influential piracy paper by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, although mainly based on proprietary data, contained an 'important complement' to the main results, consisting of four "quasi-experiments" using publicly available data. This replication examines all of these...

The influential piracy paper by Professors Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, although mainly based on proprietary data, contained an 'important complement' to the main results, consisting of four 'quasi-experiments' using publicly available data. This replication examines all of these...