QWERTY and the Search for Optimality

Kay, Neil M (2013) QWERTY and the Search for Optimality. Discussion paper. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

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Abstract

This paper shows how one of the developers of QWERTY continued to use the trade secret that underlay its development to seek further efficiency improvements after its introduction. It provides further evidence that this was the principle used to design QWERTY in the first place and adds further weight to arguments that QWERTY itself was a consequence of creative design and an integral part of a highly efficient system rather than an accident of history. This further serves to raise questions over QWERTY’s forced servitude as “paradigm case” of inferior standard in the path dependence literature. The paper also shows how complementarities in forms of intellectual property rights protection played integral roles in the development of QWERTY and the search for improvements on it, and also helped effectively conceal the source of the efficiency advantages that QWERTY helped deliver.

  • Item type:Monograph(Discussion paper)
    ID code:68086
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    18 October 2013
    Published
    Notes:Published as a paper within the Discussion Papers in Economics, No. 13-24 (2013)
    Subjects:Social Sciences > Economic Theory
    Department:Strathclyde Business School > Economics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:29 May 2019 09:18
    Last modified:15 Nov 2024 15:02
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/68086
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