Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 12, 2025
08:24
The Joint Effect of Social Comparison and Social Distance on Evaluation of Intertemporal Choice Outcomes in Event-related Potential Studies
Published on: August 25, 2023
782
Externalities, scarcity, and abundance
Brett M Frischmann1, Giovanni B Ramello2
1Department of Business and Economics, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, United States.
Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics
|January 30, 2023
Summary
Externalities function differently in scarcity versus abundance, particularly concerning knowledge resources. Understanding these economic phenomena is key to designing effective governance in complex sociotechnical systems.
Area of Science:
- Economics
- Law
- Sociotechnical Systems
Background:
- Externalities are crucial for analyzing complex social environments and resource dynamics.
- The concept of externalities has a rich intellectual history, with ongoing debate about optimizing social systems.
- Understanding externalities is vital for exploring relationships between resource supply and human flourishing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically examine the economic phenomena of externalities.
- To develop a theoretical framework for a general theory of externalities.
- To compare the behavior of externalities in worlds of scarcity versus abundance.
Main Methods:
- Defining the concept of externalities and their fundamental role in economic analysis.
- Surveying the intellectual history of externalities to integrate economic theories.
- Comparing externalities in contexts of resource scarcity and abundance.
Main Results:
- Externalities serve as a conceptual tool to identify and analyze social interdependencies.
- Externalities indicate a social demand for governance institutions.
- A general theory of externalities can inform normative analysis and institutional design.
Conclusions:
- Externalities persist and signal demand for governance, even in imperfect worlds with varying scarcity and abundance.
- The study of externalities is essential for comparative institutional analysis and designing governance in the digital age.
- Analyzing externalities in knowledge resources and digital networks offers new insights into sociotechnical systems.
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