Amateur Open Econ Toolkitcompendium of concepts, theories, and theorists

Open software people love “first principles”. But when it comes to talking open software itself, we can’t get enough analogy. Especially when it comes to persistent problems like “sustainability”.

We talk about sustainability in biology terms like “ecosystem” and “ecology”. We talk about it in infrastructure terms like “roads” and “bridges”. We talk in economic terms like “commons”.

What is the economic vocabulary of open software? Here’s a Wikipedia reading list, as a start. If you’re not fluent with these ideas, try reading the pages, or at least the introductory sections, with open software in mind. How can we use these concepts to think about software, openness, collaboration, and sustainability?

Costs

• Fixed Cost
• Variable Cost
• Marginal Cost
• Manufacturing Cost
• Transaction Cost
• Search Cost
• Switching Cost
• Barrier to Entry

Consequences

• Pareto Efficiency
• Theory of the Firm
• Ronald Coase
• Commons-Based Peer Production
• Yochai Benkler

Goods

• Excludability
• Rivalry
• Public Goods
• Private Goods
• Club Goods
• Common-Pool Resources
• Elinor Ostrom

Company

• Externality
• Spillover
• Collective Action Problem
• Free-Rider Problem
• Tragedy of the Commons
• Mancur Olson
• Collective Bargaining

Systems

• Property
• Intellectual Property
• Lindahl Tax
• Assurance Contract

Strategies

• Tying
• Loss Leader
• Dumping
• Two-Sided Market
• Boycott

Winners

• Economics of Scale
• Market Power
• Monopoly
• Monopsony
• Oligopoly
• Oligopsony
• Cartel
• Antitrust

Your thoughts and feedback are always welcome by e-mail.

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