GEI Projects

7. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS INSTITUTIONS

Principal Researchers

Professor MARTIN CAVE
Mr MARK SHURMER
Department of Economics
Brunel University

Professor PAUL A. DAVID
All Souls College, Oxford


Research Fellows

Ms Mikyung Yun, Brunel
Dr Gaoi Garino, Oxford

Contact

Mark Shurmer
Department of Economics
Brunel University
Uxbridge
Middlesex UB8 3PH

Tel: 01895 274000 ext. 3450
Fax: 01895 203384
Email: mark.shurmer@brunel.ac.uk

Duration of Research

2 1/2 years

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

International Standards Organizations (ISOs) comprise a set of institutions that have long remained conspicuous and little understood by outsiders. Yet, it has become increasingly evident that the work of these bodies has potentially profound and long lasting effects in defining markets, structuring international and interregional patterns of trade, and influencing the rate and direction of technological change. Equally evident is that the international standards-setting regime has for some time been experiencing gradually increasing strains owing to the accelerating pace of technological advance in certain fields (e.g. information and communication technology) and the recent transformations that have occurred in the world economy.

The research aims to describe and analyze the nature and economic significance of the ISOs and determine their capacity to adapt to changes in their economic and technological environment. This will provide a better understanding of the sources of current dissatisfactions. The ISOs do not, of course, work in isolation from the market defined or de facto standards process and the research will also examine the interaction between these different standards-setting processes. Finally, it seeks to provide a basis for evaluating proposals for reforming standardization regimes affecting, in particular, the electrotechnical, information and communications industries.

STUDY DESIGN

A systematic quantitative and qualitative set of data describing the structure and performance of ISOs will be gathered through a series of detailed case-studies and interviews. This will furnish benchmarks against which to evaluate the economic merits of complaints lodged against these institutions, and with which to assess the efficacy of actual and proposed reforms.

At the same time, the research will further develop the modelling of interactions between market guided processes of de facto standard-setting and formal standard-setting carried out through committee deliberation. This will involve first collecting empirical evidence regarding rates at which market and committee contests between new standards proceed in real time, and about ways in which each process may be influenced by information regarding the state of the other one; and, second, by applying that data in the specification of stochastic simulations of interdependent games.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The performance of ISOs is becoming increasingly important in shaping the global economy and yet their economic role and function remains unclear and understudied. The research will develop conceptual and empirical frameworks for assessing the performance of these institutions.

The research will also further develop the analytical framework required to answer policy-makers’ questions about the appropriate direction of reforms, ranging from modest procedural changes designed to speed committee work and the ratification of draft recommendations, to schemes for subsidization of standards-writing coupled with the relinquishment of intellectual property rights in the distribution of published standards, and still more radical proposals for privatizing quasi-public institutions (such as the CCITT) in which governmental and industry interests are currently represented.