IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v101y1991i407p801-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tortoises and Hares: Choice among Technologies of Unknown Merit

Author

Listed:
  • Cowan, Robin

Abstract

Recent work in the area of competing technologies and increasing returns has largely been concerned with the effectiveness of the market in delivering optimal outcomes. The existence of inefficient market outcomes suggests that there might be a place for intervention in the technology choice process. This paper develops a model of sequential choice in which the choice process is subject to centralized control. The model is used to show that intervention can increase the expected present value of the technology adoption process. It remains, however, that one technology, and not necessarily the best, will come to dominate the market. Copyright 1991 by Royal Economic Society.

Suggested Citation

  • Cowan, Robin, 1991. "Tortoises and Hares: Choice among Technologies of Unknown Merit," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 801-814, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:101:y:1991:i:407:p:801-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0133%28199107%29101%3A407%3C801%3ATAHCAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S&origin=bc
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:101:y:1991:i:407:p:801-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.