Standard Setting Committees: Consensus Governance for Shared Technology Platforms
Open accessAbstract
Voluntary Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs) use a consensus process to create new compatibility standards. Practitioners have suggested that SSOs are increasingly "politicized" and perhaps incapable of producing timely standards. This paper develops a simple model of standard setting committees and tests its predictions using data from the Internet Engineering Task Force, an SSO that produces many of the standards used to run the Internet. The results show that an observed slowdown in standards production between 1993 and 2003 can be linked to distributional conflicts created by the rapid commercialization of the Internet.
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The stable groups assumption is presumably not satisfied for the Simcoe (2012) regression because it is unlikely that there is any committee where the measure of distributional conflict is equal to 0.
“The stable groups assumption is presumably not satisfied: it is unlikely that there is any committee where the measure of distributional conflict is equal to 0.”
From Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (2020) · cites this paper as Simcoe (2012)
The Simcoe (2012) regression Equation (5) is similar to Regression 1 with some controls, except that it has a measure of distributional conflict instead of committee fixed effects.
“This regression is similar to Regression 1 with some controls, except that it has a measure of distributional conflict instead of committee fixed effects.”
From Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (2020) · cites this paper as Simcoe (2012)
In the Simcoe (2012) regression Equation (5), the dependent variable is a measure of time to consensus for project i submitted to committee j, and the explanatory variables are an indicator for projects submitted to the standards track, a measure of distributional conflict, their interaction, and controls.
“In regression Equation (5), the dependent variable is a measure of time to consensus for project i submitted to committee j, while the explanatory variables are an indicator for projects submitted to the standards track, a measure of distributional conflict, the interaction of the standards track and distributional conflict, and some controls variables.”
From Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (2020) · cites this paper as Simcoe (2012)
The Simcoe (2012) regression is a sharp design.
“This is a sharp design.”
From Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (2020) · cites this paper as Simcoe (2012)
Cites
Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion
Angrist, J. D., & Pischke, J.-S. (2009) · doi:10.1515/9781400829828 · Cited by 9,467 · see citing works
Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression
Stock, J., & Yogo, M. (2002) · doi:10.3386/t0284 · Cited by 1,842 · see citing works
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Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects
de Chaisemartin, C., & D’Haultfœuille, X. (2020) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.20181169 · Cited by 5,031 · see citing works
Goldfarb, A., & Tucker, C. (2019) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.20171452 · Cited by 2,744 · see citing works
The dynamics of standardization: Three perspectives on standards in organization studies
Brunsson, N., Rasche, A., & Seidl, D. (2012) · Organization Studies · doi:10.1177/0170840612450120 · Cited by 392 · see citing works
Jones, S. L., Leiponen, A., & Vasudeva, G. (2021) · Strategic Management Journal · doi:10.1002/smj.3244 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Song, F., Agarwal, A., & Wen, W. (2024) · SSRN Electronic Journal (preprint) · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4856935 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
- Authors
- Simcoe, T.
- Affiliations
- Boston University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Simcoe, Timothy
- ORCID
- Simcoe, Timothy
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2012-02-01
- Volume
- 102
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 305-336
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3122271112
- Cited by
- 243
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 49.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Digital Platforms and Economics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Media Technology › ICT Impact and Policies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Merger and Competition Analysis
- Keywords
- standards organizations, IETF, commercialization of the Internet, distributive conflict, compatibility standards
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