Mechanism
Control over a scarce input becomes control over decisions elsewhere in the system.
Enabling conditions
- Few credible substitutes
- Opaque allocation rules
- High switching costs
Failure modes
- The owner of the constraint extracts disproportionate value
- The wider system optimises for access rather than purpose
Diagnostic questions
- 1.What stops the system from developing a substitute?
- 2.Are allocation decisions visible and contestable?