The Historical Origins of 'Open Science’: An Essay on Patronage, Reputation and Common Agency Contracting in the Scientific Revolution

Paul David

No 06-038, Discussion Papers from Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This essay examines the economics of patronage and its influence upon key elements in the ethos and organizational structure of publicly funded open science. The emergence during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries of the idea and practice of “open science" was a distinctive organizational aspect of the Scientific Revolution. It represented a new set of norms, incentives, and organizational structures that reinforced scientific researchers' commitments to rapid disclosure of new knowledge. The rise of “cooperative rivalries” in the revelation of new knowledge, is seen as a functional response to heightened asymmetric information problems posed for the Renaissance system of court-patronage of the arts and sciences. In late Renaissance Europe, the feudal legacy of fragmented political authority had resulted in relations between noble patrons and their savant-clients that resembled the situation modern economists describe as "common agency contracting in substitutes"—competition among incompletely informed principals for the dedicated services of multiple agents.

Keywords: open science; patronage; common agency contracting; scientific revolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-12
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: The Historical Origins of 'Open Science': An Essay on Patronage, Reputation and Common Agency Contracting in the Scientific Revolution (2008)
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