Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy

When the University of Michigan Press approached me to bring out a book of collected papers on increasing returns in economics I was surprised. I had thought that only older researchers, venerable and near retirement, issued collected works. But Timur Kuran, my editor, and Colin Day, the Press’s director, argued that although the papers collected here have been receiving much attention lately, several of them have appeared in obscure places and are not easy to track down. In book form they would be accessible. Moreover, if they were brought together, a wider picture might emerge from the mosaic they create than from the individual pieces. This sounded like sufficient rationalization to me, and I accepted their invitation with gusto.