# Path Dependency **Domain:** Institutional Economics / Infrastructure / Governance **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Classification:** Lock-In Mechanism **Maturity:** Established **Related:** [[wiki/Ontological Drift|Ontological Drift]], [[wiki/Institutional Superorganism|Institutional Superorganism]], [[wiki/Technical Archaeology|Technical Archaeology]] --- ## Definition **Path Dependency** describes processes in which earlier choices alter the cost and probability of later choices. Increasing returns, coordination effects, learning, installed infrastructure, contractual commitments and switching costs can lock a system into an inherited path even when alternatives later become superior. ## Continuity Consequence Identity formats, custody contracts, storage encodings and registry rules can harden before their moral consequences are visible. Once persons, estates and institutions depend on them, changing a defective rule may threaten the very continuants the reform is meant to protect. Early technical defaults therefore become constitutional facts. ## Countermeasures Interoperability, reversible migrations, export rights, modular standards, sunset review and explicit reversion paths reduce lock-in. They do not erase history; they preserve the ability to change course without destroying accumulated state. ## Sources - Paul A. David, “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” *American Economic Review* 75 (1985). - W. Brian Arthur, *Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy* (1994). - Paul Pierson, “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics,” *American Political Science Review* 94 (2000). ## See Also [[wiki/Sunset Provisions|Sunset Provisions]] · [[wiki/Infrastructure Capture|Infrastructure Capture]] · [[wiki/Migration Right|Migration Right]]