The Economy That Keeps Becoming · Chapter Three

Where the Model Runs Thin

Ammanuel Santa Anna · ORCID 0009-0008-3244-0306

Chapter Three of The Economy That Keeps Becoming: Complexity Economics, Read as a Living System, for Leaders and Households.

Abstract

There is a keyboard on almost every desk in the English-speaking world whose top row of letters begins Q, W, E, R, T, Y. For a generation of economists it was the most famous object in their field. In 1985 the economic historian Paul David published a short paper in the American Economic Review called "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY". He told the story of the typewriter keyboard: designed in the 1870s, partly to keep the bars of early machines from jamming, adopted by the first successful manufacturers, taught in typing schools, and then fixed in place because every typist trained on it and every employer bought for it. A rival layout, patented by August Dvorak in the 1930s, was said to be faster. It never displaced the old one. David's point was the one W. Brian Arthur was making in theory at the same time: under increasing returns, history can lock a market into an arrangement that is not the best available.

Cite this chapter

Santa Anna, A. (2026). Where the Model Runs Thin. In The Economy That Keeps Becoming. Luminous Prosperity Inc. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23989454

@incollection{santaanna2026the3,
  author    = {Santa Anna, Ammanuel},
  title     = {Where the Model Runs Thin},
  booktitle = {The Economy That Keeps Becoming},
  chapter   = {3},
  publisher = {Luminous Prosperity Inc.},
  year      = {2026},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23989454},
  url       = {https://business.hautelumiere.life/library/the-economy-that-keeps-becoming/03-where-the-model-runs-thin/}
}

References

  1. David, P. A. (1985). Clio and the economics of QWERTY. American Economic Review, 75(2), 332–337 (Papers and Proceedings). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1805621. A historical narrative; its account of Dvorak's superiority rests on earlier trials that were later disputed (see note 2). No DOI is registered for this issue; the stable JSTOR address is given.
  2. Liebowitz, S. J., & Margolis, S. E. (1990). The fable of the keys. The Journal of Law and Economics, 33(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1086/467198
  3. Fagiolo, G., Moneta, A., & Windrum, P. (2007). A critical guide to empirical validation of agent-based models in economics: Methodologies, procedures, and open problems. Computational Economics, 30(3), 195–226. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10614-007-9104-4
  4. Farmer, J. D., & Foley, D. (2009). The economy needs agent-based modelling. Nature, 460, 685–686. https://doi.org/10.1038/460685a
  5. Unruh, G. C. (2000). Understanding carbon lock-in. Energy Policy, 28(12), 817–830. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0301-4215(00)00070-7
  6. Cowan, R. (1990). Nuclear power reactors: A study in technological lock-in. The Journal of Economic History, 50(3), 541–567. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050700037153
  7. Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A leader's framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, 85(11), 68–76. https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making. A practitioner framework; it is not an empirical study of decision outcomes. No DOI is registered for this article.

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  2. Chapter TwoThe Economy That Keeps Becomingdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989453
  3. Chapter ThreeWhere the Model Runs Thindoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989454
  4. Chapter FourNobody Designed the Trapdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989455
  5. Chapter FiveThe Valley and the Highwaydoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989458
  6. Chapter SixThe Week After the Firedoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989459
  7. Chapter SevenA Firm Read as Weatherdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989460
  8. Chapter EightThe Field Manualdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989463
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  12. Chapter TwelveThe Path Across the Lawndoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989467
  13. Chapter ThirteenWhat Grows by Itselfdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989472
  14. WorkbookEvery Tool, and a Ninety-Day Plandoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989473

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The licence

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