Most economic analyses of path creation and dependence are stories about how standards create network externalities - and thus potential "lock-in" - in technological systems like personal computers or high-definition television. This paper examines similar questions of path creation and...

By employing modularity theory, we study the general phenomenon of open-source collaboration, which includes, e.g., collective invention and open science besides open-source software production. We focus on how open-source collaboration coordinates the division of labor. We find that open-source...