Governing Markets as Knowledge Commons

This volume develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of the production, reproduction, and transformation of intellectual and legal infrastructures that enable market interactions using the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework. A distinctive contribution of this volume is the conceptualization of market-supporting knowledge structures as shared goods (established through cooperation) and contribution goods (established through competition). There are four building blocks around which the edited volume revolves. First, the chapters show that markets are cultural; they depend on various kinds of knowledge, some of which are governed as commons. Second, unlike physical commons, the market-supporting knowledge commons are produced and reproduced by contributions and sharing. Third, these knowledge commons serve as economic inputs in private production processes. Finally, the volume highlights the social and cultural effects of entrepreneurship. Through innovation and slight evasions of existing rules, entrepreneurs change not merely market goods but also social conventions and cultural meanings. Building on the GKC framework, the book highlights the entanglement of markets with society and the broader culture of which markets are part.

Erwin Dekker is Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has previously published Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) and the Rise of Economic Expertise (2021) and The Viennese Students of Civilization (2016), both with Cambridge University Press. He has also published numerous journal articles in the fields of history of economic thought, cultural economics, and economic sociology. He is currently working on a history of the intellectual descendants of the German Historical School.

Pavel Kuchař is a lecturer at the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London. He is a member of the History of Economic Thought Society (THETS) and the World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research (WINIR). His work has been published in the Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Econ Journal Watch, and the Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, among others.