This working paper is part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s (UCL IIPP) publication series.
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Coordination and Power: A discussion on the problem of information in production and competition | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) Working Paper (WP 2025-14)
Author:
- Fausto Gernone | PhD Candidate | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
This paper was awarded the Herbert Simon Prize by the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE).
Abstract:
This paper reframes production as an information-processing endeavour where agents form networks of complementary activities coordinated through markets, firms, and cooperative arrangements. It argues that this process entails significant cognitive and computational costs, whose distribution across agents is central to understanding organisation, competition and power. After advancing a taxonomy of interfirm coordination stages and their respective informational requirements, it draws on Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety to define power as the ability to shift coordination costs onto partners while preserving one’s own strategic flexibility. The analysis is then situated in the context of information technologies which, by altering the costs of processing information and coordinating activities, profoundly affect the structure of production and the character of competition. The resulting concentration of information processing capacity in large platforms raises new policy challenges, which are finally discussed.
Reference:
This working paper can be referenced as follows: Gernone, F. (2025). Coordination and Power: A discussion on the problem of information in production and competition. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper Series (IIPP WP 2025-14). ISSN 2635-0122.
Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/publications/2025/jul/coordination-and-power
This working paper is part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s (UCL IIPP) publication series.
Explore more working papers and policy reports here.