Some Simple Economics of Open Source

Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole

Journal of Industrial Economics, 2002, vol. 50, issue 2, 197-234

Abstract: There has been a recent surge of interest in open source software development, which involves developers at many different locations and organizations sharing code to develop and refine programs. To an economist, the behavior of individual programmers and commercial companies engaged in open source projects is initially startling. This paper makes a preliminary exploration of the economics of open source software. We highlight the extent to which labor economics, especially the literature on ‘career concerns’, and industrial organization theory can explain many of these projects’ features. We conclude by listing interesting research questions related to open source software.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (423)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6451.00174

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jindec:v:50:y:2002:i:2:p:197-234

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0022-1821

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Industrial Economics is currently edited by Pierre Regibeau, Yeon-Koo Che, Kenneth Corts, Thomas Hubbard, Patrick Legros and Frank Verboven

More articles in Journal of Industrial Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().