Evolutionary stability of de jure and de facto standards

Evolutionary stability of de jure and de facto standards

Takanori Ida

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2000)

This paper is intended as a step towards a theoretical economic analysis of standards. It is desired that economists can understand the standards more completely, and discussions about the standard-setting policy can be more refined. First, there are two conditions for a unanimously chosen standard, which is called a de jure standard, to be established: the critical mass and the path dependence. Second, a de facto standard depends on the degree of difficulty agreeing on compatibility: the de facto standard can be established even in the case where the de jure standard cannot be expected to be established.