Standards and the Distribution of Cognitive Labour

Logic Journal of IGPL, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 278-293, 2010

16 Pages Posted: 26 Dec 2009 Last revised: 9 Aug 2010

See all articles by Rogier De Langhe

Rogier De Langhe

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Matthias Greiff

Clausthal University of Technology - Department of Economics and Business Administration

Date Written: December 16, 2009

Abstract

We present a model of the distribution of labour in science. Such models tend to rely on the mechanism of the invisible hand (e.g. Hull 1988, Goldman & Shaked 1991 and Kitcher 1990). Our analysis starts from the necessity of standards in distributed processes and the possibility of multiple standards in science. Invisible hand models turn out to have only limited scope because they are restricted to describing the atypical single-standard case. Our model is a generalisation of these models to J standards; single-standard models such as Kitcher (1990) are a limiting case. We introduce and formalise this model, demonstrate its dynamics and conclude that the conclusions commonly derived from invisible hand models about the distribution of labour in science are not robust against changes in the number of standards.

Keywords: Distribution of cognitive labor, division of labor, dynamics of scientfic activity, CO-IR discrepancy, invisible hand, standards, increasing returns to adoption, Philip Kitcher, network industry

JEL Classification: A13, A14, D71

Suggested Citation

De Langhe, Rogier and Greiff, Matthias, Standards and the Distribution of Cognitive Labour (December 16, 2009). Logic Journal of IGPL, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 278-293, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1526535

Rogier De Langhe (Contact Author)

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

Matthias Greiff

Clausthal University of Technology - Department of Economics and Business Administration ( email )

Julius-Albert-Str. 2
Clausthal-Zellerfeld D-38678
Germany