Introduction to: Standards: shared rules or tools of power? Technical standardization and the evolution of business and economy in the contemporary age

This introduction opens a special issue, featuring articles by Luca Andreoni, Malin Dahlström, Igor Goñi-Mendizabal, Francesca Sanna, Dirk Wiegand, that addresses the role of standardization in the contemporary economy and its historical development. Modern markets rely on a complex system of rules, technical specifications, and guidelines produced by numerous organizations and experts. Although often voluntary and largely invisible to final users, standards regulate product features, production processes, safety requirements, and quality, thereby structuring economic activity and market coordination. From the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries onward, industrialization, technological change, and the expansion of international trade led to the creation of national and international standardization bodies and to the rapid proliferation of formal technical norms. These introductory remarks aim to outline the main debates on the economic effects of standards. While some scholars see them as potential barriers to competition, others emphasize their role in promoting innovation, knowledge diffusion, and technological coordination. The issue’s contributions explore these dynamics by analyzing the historical emergence and impact of standards in different economic contexts.