Computer Mediated Transactions University of （电脑中介交易大学）.pdf

American Economic Review: Papers Proceedings 100 (May 2010): 1–10 /articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.2.1 RICHARD T. ELY LECTURE Computer Mediated Transactions By Hal R. Varian* Every now and then a set of technologies of component technologies which encouraged becomes available that sets off a period of combinatorial innovation. “combinatorial innovation.” Think of standard- The earlier waves of combinatorial innovation ized mechanical parts in the 1800s, the gasoline required decades or more to play out. For exam- engine in the early 1900s, electronics in the ple, Hounshell (1984) argues that the utopian 1920s, integrated circuits in the 1970s, and the vision of interchangeable parts took well over a Internet in the last decade or so. century to be realized. The Web was invented in The component parts of these technologies the early 1990s but didn’t really become widely can be combined and recombined by innovators used till the mid-1990s. Since then we have seen to create new devices and applications. Since a huge number of novel applications, from Web these innovators are working in parallel with browsers, to search engines, to social networks, similar components, it is common to see simul- to mention just a few examples. As with the taneous invention. There are many well-known Internet, the Web initially had no real business examples, such as the electric light, the airplane, model but offered a fertile ground for combina- the automobil