Joshua Frank

JEL Number: O33, B52

Key words: Path dependence, lock-in, animal research

For decades or even centuries, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the morality of animal research. Although many researchers actively involved in animal research claim there are important human benefits, some philosophers such as Singer (1975) and Regan (1983) argue that the exploitation of sentient beings for human benefit is simply wrong regardless of the benefits it might bring. The opponents of animal research make a strong case that it is ethically unjustifiable. However, the focus here is not on the philosophical debate, but on the more technical issue of the efficacy of animal research. The two issues are clearly linked, since the justification typically given by those making an ethical argument for animal research is that the benefits to humans (who are given more value) outweigh the costs to animals (who are given little weight). If animal research cannot be shown to have substantial benefits, then the argument in favor of such research fails regardless of the weights given to humans and animals.

There have been voices raising concerns about animal research’s efficacy even before Singer’s book sparked renewed debate on the ethical issues of animal exploitation. For example, in 1930’s one physician writing in a medical publication called drug experiments on animals "useless" and "misleading" in terms of their applicability to man (Medical World, 1933) while another physician in the 1960’s called animal experimentation "doubtful and misleading" and advocated the use of clinical observation as a superior alternative (Bayly, 1961).

The debate on the benefits of animal research has grown much stronger recently. In Sacred Cows and Golden Geese, Greek & Greek (2000) argue that animal research is a "political sacred cow" that is unnecessary and even harmful for its intended beneficiaries. Greek & Greek argue that the differences in the biology of humans and animals are sizable enough to make animal research useless (except for understanding animal biology rather than human biology). Although there will certainly be cases where the results in humans and animals are similar, the experiments suffer from an unacceptably high rate of both false positives and false negatives. Both false negatives and false positives can keep effective drugs and treatments off the market. In testing the risks of a treatment intended for humans on animals, a "false positive" would raise concerns over a risk that does not actually exist in humans, keeping valuable medical care off the market. For example, Depo-Provera was kept off the market for 20 years in the United States because it caused cancer in baboons and dogs, but use in other countries proved it actually had no such effect on humans (Greek and Greek, 2000). A "false negative" in safety testing would indicate a treatment is safe when it is actually harmful, causing potential harm to humans. For example the antibiotics Omniflox and Floxin were withdrawn from the market after one caused seizures and psychosis and the other caused deaths (Fried, 1998). Too many "false positives" and "false negatives" can mislead researchers studying the effectiveness of a treatment as well as the risks. A "false positive" in a treatment’s effectiveness would waste valuable time and resources by leading future research down a futile path. For example, in the 1880’s, Koch created a "vaccine" for tuberculosis from mice, which not only did not work, it also cause the disease to flare up in humans (Westacott, 1949). A "false negative" in a treatment’s effectiveness would cause a potentially valuable find to be put aside (for example penicillin’s release was delayed when tests on rabbits suggested it was ineffective; Ruesch 1989). False positive and false negative results are misleading and worse than useless for basic research using animals as well as tests for drugs and medical treatments. Steinman & Szalavitz (2002) argue that basic research has too frequently failed to give useful information that yields benefits to humans, arguing that instead more emphasis should be placed on clinical study of humans. Whether it is applied testing of treatments on animals or basic research, false information leads to uncertainty and error, rather than an increase in knowledge.

Of course, most scientific fields of inquiry are subject to error. Therefore, some amount of false positive and negative results are unavoidable. In statistical tests, the use of a significance level (often 5%) is based on a trade-off of the risks of false positive (i.e. interpreting random error as real) and false negative results (missing real trends). However, when the false positive and false negative rates are high enough for a certain type of research, then that methodology offers no practical guidance or value. This is just what Greek & Greek argue is the case for animal research. They estimate just the "false negative" rate for harmful effects to be between 52 to 100 percent. Other studies estimate that eighty percent of drugs fail human trails after passing non-human animal tests either due to lack of effectiveness or harmful side-effects (Dunayer, 2001). Even after release these heavily animal-tested drugs often fail to deliver on the results shown in the laboratory, according to a study of 198 drugs released by the FDA between 1976 to 1985. The majority, 52 percent, of drugs were removed from the market or relabeled due to unpredicted side effects (GAO, 1991).

Although Greek & Greek and others have made a powerful case against animal research, the methodology remains pervasive, with a variety of experts (often its practitioners) and organizations extolling its virtues. The question addressed here is whether a practice that is such a large part of our economy and institutions could possibly be as misdirected and scientifically invalid as some have claimed.

David (1985) and Arthur (1989) pioneered the concept of technological lock-in. Most of traditional economic theory is built on an assumption of diminishing returns, but when industries are instead characterized by positive feedback or increasing returns, then there can be multiple equilibrium points or possible growth paths leading to distinct outcomes. Minor or "random" events can cause a certain technological growth path to "lock-in" determining which technology will prevail. This can occur even if the technology selected is inferior in the long-run.

Since the concept of path dependency presents a serious challenge to much of traditional neoclassical theory, it is not without critics. The primary criticism is that path dependency leading to suboptimal outcomes creates unexploited profit opportunities for entrepreneurs to take advantage of (Liebowitz and Margolis, 1994). Altman (2000) calls unexploited opportunities "the Achilles Heel of path dependency theory from the perspective of conventional wisdom". But this counterargument has serious shortcomings. First, it relies on extremely strong and unrealistic market efficiency assumptions, and second, it appears to misunderstand part of the technological lock-in argument in the first place. Transaction costs, imperfect information, uncertain outcomes, capital constraints, and imperfect contracting between firms all create frictions reducing the ability of entrepreneurs to take advantage of "unexploited opportunities". In addition, as will be discussed later, institutional and behavioral aspects of lock-in can also make reversing paths difficult. There is also some evidence from the actual data on paths of technological change that adaptation is incremental and subject to path dependence (Anderson, 1998)

But more important than these constraints is the opaque nature of technological change itself. The unexploited profit opportunities argument assumes that clearly visible opportunities exist, but this is a misreading of the path dependency theory as it was originally presented. Technological lock-in proponents do not argue that a technology can never be replaced by clearly superior technology (for example, the CD player for the record player), even if there are some significant barriers to its introduction. Rather they argue that when two technologies are currently similar in their usefulness but lead to quite different but largely unknown growth paths, the superior long-term path is not necessary the path chosen. Commonly cited examples of lock-in include the QWERTY typewriter keyboard, the choice of VHS over beta video recording technology, nuclear power plant cooling technology, and the gas combustion engine for motor vehicles vs. steam technology (Arthur, 1994).

Technology is an incremental building process, and though one can speculate post-hoc that a certain path might have been inferior in the long-run it typically cannot be known for certain, since the true outcome of the path not taken can never be known. What can be stated with confidence is that with positive feedback or increasing returns the path taken might well become locked into place, regardless of which long-run path is superior.

Researchers in political science and economics have made a strong case that institutions can also be subject to lock-in and path dependence. On the political science side, arguments for institutional inertia have been made by March and Olsen (1989) and later by Pierson (2000) among others. The argument is based both on the inherent resistance of both norms and formal rules to change, and the growth of practices by both state and societal actors who have a stake in preserving the status quo and therefore resist change (Banchoff, 2002).

Nobel Laureate Economist Douglass North (1990, 1991) also argues that institutions exhibit a large degree of path-dependence. His arguments explicitly utilize the prior work by Arthur (1989) and David (1985) and the concept of positive returns. Institutions can be self-reinforcing due to network externalities, economies of scope, and complementarities within the institutional matrix. Or, "in everyday language, the individual organizations with bargaining power as a result of the institutional framework have a crucial stake in perpetuating the system" (North, 1993a pg. 3).

An important insight by North is his acknowledgement of the importance of the psychological and sociological dimensions of lock-in. North places importance not just on the explicit rules and social structure, but also on the less easily observed and measured cultural norms and attitudes that are an important component of path dependence. North also acknowledges the key role played by perceptions and belief systems. Institutions are not just perpetuated by powerful stakeholders perpetuating their own self interest. "Belief systems are the underlying determinant of path dependence…The way the institutions evolve reflects the ongoing belief systems of the players." (North, 1994, pg 5).

We have established that there are some serious criticisms of the efficacy of animal research and that technology and institutions have the potential to lock a certain path into place even if it is not optimal. But is animal research a case of lock-in? For this we must look to what properties are associated with a technology or institution likely to be path-dependent.

According to Arthur (1994), resource-based sectors of the economy are likely to face diminishing returns and be subject to conventional economic theory. However, knowledge-based sectors are largely subject to increasing returns and will therefore experience technological lock-in. These are areas which require large initial investments in research and development but for which incremental production is relatively cheap. Arthur specifically includes pharmaceuticals as an industry subject to increasing returns.

What about the basic scientific research on animals that is not directly tied to product development? According to Arthur, technologies typically improve as more people adopt them and firms gain experience that guides further development. This creates a positive feedback loop that gives such technologies a "selectional advantage" once they gain a foothold. This certainly seems applicable to most scientific disciplines involving animal research. For example, scientists choose mice and rats as experimental subjects because so much is known about them from prior experiments. This knowledge has made these subjects a logical next choice after humans for mapping their genome. The mapping of the mouse genome would again create positive feedback, enabling further research on these "subjects". Likewise, experience in animal toxicity tests builds a knowledgebase that makes animal research an easier method for future toxicity tests even if other methods could be developed.

Knowledge in animal research disciplines is an incremental building process, with the existing knowledge facilitating future knowledge development. The same is true for alternatives to animal research. The relatively scant knowledge on alternatives to animal testing makes these alternatives less likely to be selected as a research option, perpetuating the lag in knowledge-base for these alternatives. There seems to be a strong case for technological lock-in of animal research.

Although Arthur and David typically have talked about lock-in of equally viable technologies by chance events, their theories equally apply to a situation where rates of change in complementary technologies determine the dominant technology. In the case of animal research, alternatives which are viable today depend a great deal on complementary technologies. Technologies that drive these alternatives include computer simulation, sophisticated databases and information systems with large sets of epidemiological data, advanced technologies in the use of cellular tissue, and advances in chemistry. These complementary technologies were not viable at the time when animal research gained strength, leading to lock-in of one technology due in part to historical circumstance.

North often emphasizes the importance of historical factors in determining institutional paths. Early medical research by Hippocrates in the fourth century B.C.E. was based on clinical observation of humans. However, a few centuries later the church’s policy of not allowing human autopsies drove a shift to animal research by Galen in second century Rome (Greek & Greek, 2000). Although Galen’s conclusions contained many serious errors, the Church’s prohibition on human dissection would make dissection of animals the dominant method of medical discovery for over a thousand years. Although human study began to grow in the Rennaissance, in 1865 the work of Claude Bernard reversed any trend away from the study of animals. Bernard (1865) declared that "true medical science" only occurs in the setting of the animal experimentation laboratory. Bernard further urged scientists to not "hear the cries of the animals", nor "see their flowing blood", when studying a problem they seek to solve. Greek & Greek blame much of the willingness of the scientific community to embrace Bernard’s animal research ideal on the climate of the times, which included the growth of the Industrial Revolution as well as strong anthropocentric sentiments. The animal research ideal clearly quickly took hold; only ten years later dissenters already feared that speaking out would cause them to be expelled from their profession (Hoggan, 1875). Since that time, animal research has dominated methodology in medicine and related areas for over a century.

In the current environment, the case for institutional lock-in of animal research due to the actions of self-interested stakeholders is quite easy to establish. Animal research currently is an industry of enormous proportions with large stakeholders in government, industry, and academia. Key beneficiaries include faculty members, academic departments and entire universities, private testing companies, animal breeders and equipment suppliers, government agencies and elected officials, pharmaceutical companies, non-profit organizations that exist primarily as funding conduits for animal research, and other major corporations that utilize products tested on animals (chemical companies, cosmetics producers, etc.). It is not merely a logical conclusion that these groups would try to protect their interests. As proof, one merely needs to point to the numerous influential groups that exist explicitly fully or in part to promote animal research such as the National Association for Biomedical Research, the Foundation for Biomedical Research, Americans for Medical Progress Educational Foundation, the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, among many others. Other major organizations whose memberships includes those with an interest in animal research such as the American Medical Association and governmental agencies that rely on this research such as the National Institute for Health and the National Institute for Mental Health have also become vigorous advocates for animal research. In assessing the self-interest of entities such as agencies, it is important to recognize that not only do the institutions themselves exist in large part to fund animal research, but that there is a strong flow of personnel between regulatory/ funding agencies, private corporations doing animal research, and academic institutions involved in such research. Although the largest funder of medical research, the National Institute of Health, does give grants for other types of research, the majority of projects it funds are animal research. Academic institutions may also have an incentive to favor animal research due to the large amount of overhead funding received for these types of projects (Ahrens, 1992)..

Clearly, there is a strong case for self-interest at both the personal and institutional level to perpetuate animal research. Given the central role economics has traditionally given to self-interest in motivating human behavior and given that most of the "experts" on the need for animal research are the beneficiaries of animal research, the opinions of these experts on the need for animal research should be treated skeptically.

In addition to the power of self-interest, there are other forces that cause institutional inertia that helps perpetuate animal research. There is a massive existing animal research infrastructure that helps to perpetuate such research. Physical infrastructure includes facilities designed to house and experiment on animals, breeding facilities, specialized equipment, and a large "inventory" of animals at any given time. Conferences, journals, associations, granting organizations, and academic programs exist devoted to animal research. Ongoing contractual relationships also help to perpetuate inertia. Aside from self-interest, all of these infrastructure elements make animal research an easier option to execute than building new alternative research programs. The existence of numerous publication and speaking venues devoted to animal research results begs the question of whether this research is valid and truly useful; the fact that publication is likely makes the research viable from an academician’s perspective, and the existence of ongoing research with new findings by "leaders in the field" makes the continuation of such venues viable.

The legal environment, including explicit laws, regulations, and case history also helps to create inertia. Animal testing is required by law or regulatory agency in many situations (for example in toxicity testing). Even when animal testing is not required, the legal environment still often favors animal testing as a method for companies to show they have done due diligence to prove a product is safe or effective when they are sued.

Walker (2000), using an example of a nuclear reprocessing plant in the UK concludes that large technology systems can have embedded legal, social, and political commitments that can create institutional inertia perpetuating the technology long after it is viable. Walker finds that this inertia is especially likely where there are complex products and infrastructures and state involvement. It is difficult to find a better case for inertia than the animal research infrastructure.

The behavioral component of lock-in is probably the most subtle yet the most powerful. Even if agents ignored self interest, they are likely to make decisions biased by their previous experience, psychology, and the nature of the institutions. North (1993b) argues that part of the explanation for path dependence comes from the way that perceptions limit choice sets. These perceptions, come from the mental constructs of agents that are "partly a result of their cultural heritage, partly the result of the "local" everyday problems they confront and must solve, and partly a result of non-local learning" (pg. 2). What does this mean for agents involved in animal research? Although each researcher has an individual cultural heritage, the many years of schooling and job training they must complete creates a second cultural heritage for them which has implicit in its belief system that "animal research is ethically justifiable" and "animal research is useful". As a researcher doing their own work and with exposure mainly to the results of other animal research, the local and non-local learning they experience will probably serve to further reinforce their belief in this research.

Heiner (1983) argues that when facing complex decisions, humans with their limited cognitive capacities tend to construct rules to restrict the flexibility of choices. In later works, Heiner (1985 & 1988) expands this concept to conclude that agents will choose not to use information sources too distant from their local experience. In terms of animal research, this implies that agents will likely use the results of other similar research and often dismiss the results from alternative sources. This once again creates a self-reinforcing belief system.

The nature of animal research institutions also creates self-reinforcing beliefs. For most of medical history, animal research was an institutionally required step to getting a drug or technique accepted as valid (both in terms of efficacy and in terms of possible risks). Therefore, almost every medical advance has involved animal testing. But this was through institutional requirement rather than any benefit from that testing. In fact Greek & Greek (2000) give many examples of where success is mistakenly associated with animal tests that had nothing to do with the true breakthrough. Nevertheless, it is likely that many agents involved in animal research will associate successes with animal testing. This possibility is supported by the psychological evidence that people tend to find patterns in data even when there is none (for example, Feldman 1959).

There are also a variety of psychological reasons to expect agents in the field of animal research to establish a belief system that supports this research. A recent review of psychological biases as they apply to economics can also be found in Rabin (1998). One of these, "confirmatory bias" is especially applicable here. People’s beliefs tended to persevere in the face of contradictory evidence. In fact, people have been found to even interpret contradictory evidence as confirmation of their original hypothesis. People are also subject to self-serving bias (Fletcher & Ward, 1988) and motivated reasoning (Kunda, 1990), both of which would suggest that animal research agents may overestimate their field’s contribution even if they were making their best effort to give an objective assessment.

Given the obvious ethical issues and ongoing debate regarding animal research, cognitive dissonance theory (originally theorized by Festinger, 1957 and applied to economics by Akerlof & Dickens, 1982) probably plays an important role in agent judgment in this arena. When beliefs and actions conflict, it creates dissonance within the individual that must be rectified by changing the actions or the beliefs. Animal researchers often claim simultaneously to be "animal lovers". Even if they are not animal lovers, people generally desire to believe they are ethical people doing ethical work. Yet the job of the animal researcher often involves obvious pain, suffering and death. Surely the only way to prevent dissonance in this type of work would be to establish a belief system that establishes their work as morally justified. The most likely (and perhaps the only) moral justification for causing pain, suffering, and death would be a strong belief that the work has great value to society. Therefore, dissonance is a strong unconscious motive for researchers to believe their work has great value. It is surely reasonable to think that there will be a psychological tendency for people in any field to believe that their chosen career is valuable, however the concept of cognitive dissonance suggests that this tendency may be particularly powerful in fields that involve the use of ethically questionable methods.

As units of expression as well as thought, language itself can play an important role in perpetuating belief systems. Dunayer (2001) uses numerous examples to demonstrate how animal researchers manipulate language to justify their actions both to themselves and to outsiders. Dunayer also gives an interesting example demonstrating how the beliefs of researchers regarding the necessity of their work and the lack of alternatives can stem from a failure to think creatively and consider all possibilities. In a famous 1965 psychological experiment Seligman demonstrated the concept of "learned helplessness" in a series of very painful experiments on dogs. Though Seligman claimed the suffering was necessary and it was the only way to get the result, another researcher six years later achieved the same results using much more benign methods on human volunteers.

Another element of behavioral-institution lock-in that has broad applicability but has not been sufficiently explored elsewhere is the self-selective and self-reinforcing nature of the learning process. Academic institutions are probably particularly subject to this type of lock-in, which occurs both at the learning and at the professional stages. The leading decision makers in animal research generally have terminal degrees. The higher education process involves both enculturation and a weeding/self-selection process. College and graduate school education involves teaching of belief systems and disciplinary cultural norms as well as subject matter. These belief systems can become deeply ingrained in the students.

But perhaps even more powerful than the learning of norms is the role of selection processes in eliminating "nonconforming" students. The selection process takes two forms. The first is the explicit process conducted by professors of judging student progress. Certainly there is an element of judging student conformance to norms of the discipline in this process as well as other criteria, particularly in graduate school. However, probably a more powerful sorting mechanism is the self-selection process initiated by the students themselves. The match between student belief systems and academic discipline norms is a key element in the process of choosing undergraduate majors and graduate programs. A student, for example, who is interested in the distribution of resources in society but who finds through their undergraduate courses that the traditional assumptions and underlying beliefs of economics clash with her own will most likely will choose a graduate program in another area (such as political science or public policy) rather than economics. Therefore, even if there are potentially numerous dissenting views to the prevailing disciplinary paradigm, the academic self-selection process will likely lead many of the dissenters to choose alternate education paths, leaving a self-confirming bias in the discipline.

There is also an academic selection process after schooling at the professional level. More specifically, agents with views conforming to discipline norms are more likely to gain prominent and frequent publication, funding for their research, and advancement in their field. Completing the circle, the agents who gain strong reputations are the ones who are most likely to gain positions of power allowing them to determine publication, funding and advancement of future researchers. Thus, academic selection processes at both the student and professional help to perpetuate existing norms and belief systems. In animal research disciplines and sub-disciplines, these norms and belief systems are likely to include the efficacy of prevailing methods.

As described in Frank (2003), there may be other reasons to expect a bias in favor of certain beliefs. The adoption of an idea is related to its internal psychological appeal. As described by Greek & Greek (2000), part of the reason animal research first gained its foothold as the dominant scientific method was due to its superficially scientific nature. Animal research allowed quantified numerical analysis and the use of emerging statistical methods at a time when other methods did not. The method also allowed manipulation of subjects to allow cleanly defined experimental groups superficially free of complicating factors. Though none of this addresses the validity of the animal model as a proxy for human biology, these factors still create a pseudo-scientific appearance of rigor. Top biology journals prefer the "simple elegant studies doable on simple lab organisms" to "the messy, often ambiguous ones on humans" (Begley, 2003. Just as economic models with sweeping assumptions that lead to mathematical tractability, deterministic conclusions, and clean results may have strong appeal despite having low applicability, animal research similarly has a certain mathematical tractability and cleanliness of results that enhances its appeal.

An assumption (often unspoken) that natural selection processes weed out inefficiencies pervades much of economics. The lock-in arguments of North and David, and Arthur already take into account selection exclude the possibility of natural selection overcoming the path dependent nature of institutions and technology. Nevertheless, it is important to address some other reasons why natural selection will not lead to an efficient result.

Academic and government institutions have their own selection processes that can be self-perpetuating and that have nothing necessarily to do with efficiency or promoting the optimal technology. In fact, with no profit motive, there is no reason to expect that these institutions promote efficient or optimal results. Some of the likely selection processes prevailing in academic institutions have already been described here.

However, a more difficult question relates to drug companies and other profit-seeking enterprises that rely on animal testing. If an alternative methodology is superior to animal research, then why would that technology not prevail and come to dominate the private portion of the research market? First, it is important to recognize that technological lock-in and institutional lock-in can make a potentially superior technology in the long-term inferior in terms of short-term payoffs. In fact, this is the precise nature of the path dependency concept. In addition, it is also important to recognize that pharmaceutical research and development is a low probability-high payoff venture (i.e. to a certain extent it is "lottery-like"). Therefore, random forces will dominate the short-term payoffs. It is up to decision-makers to detect patterns in these payoffs. As already discussed, these decision-makers will have their own biases when seeking to find patterns in these payoffs.

As discussed in Frank (2003), ultimately it is the ideas themselves that are subject to the natural selection process since ideas can be imitated and evolve much more rapidly than firms. The evolution of ideas is a psychological process based on their appeal. Ideas can be appealing because they are superior, but they can also be appealing for a variety of other reasons. Numerous arguments have already been provided here suggesting why animal research will be particularly appealing to the agents empowered to make these particular research decisions.

Animal research is a very strong candidate for both institutional and technological lock-in. Animal research has positive feedbacks in technology and considerable time to gain technological advantage over competing methods, numerous powerful constituencies with an interest in perpetuating it dominance over other methods (including government, academic, industry interest groups), and other institutional factors leading to inertia. In addition, there are powerful reasons to expect behaviors and perceptions to be path dependent. In fact, it may prove difficult to find a better candidate for path dependency and lock-in than animal research.

It is important to recognize that if research in certain fields has in fact locked-in to an animal use methodology, this does not necessarily mean that animal research is an inferior technological path (although others have attempted to make the case that it is). What it does demonstrate, however, is that if animal research is an inferior path, there is no reason to expect the path to self-correct. This is an important point since much of the public is likely to assume animal research must be the most effective method simply due to its prevalence.

There are experts who argue on both sides of the debate regarding the efficacy of animal research. The analysis here suggests that conclusions as to which methodology is superior cannot simply be based on the number of experts on either side of the debate. Not only do those involved in animal research have an interest in advocating its merits, but the analysis here suggests there are reasons to expect that they will likely be biased in favor of animal research in terms of what they actually believe. It should also be acknowledged that experts arguing against the efficacy of animal research often also have a moral objection to such research, giving them at least one source of bias as well.

Due to the unpredictable nature of scientific discovery, it is impossible to truly determine what technological paths will be more fruitful far into the future. In some cases, a default of taking a laissez faire approach may be optimal. However, there are cases when policy intervention may be preferable. One of these may be when truly promising technological options are "locked out" of the marketplace. Significant externalities or ethical issues can also be a valid cause for intervention (such as promoting currently unprofitable but promising energy alternatives that reduce pollution). In the case of animal research, society has begun to recognize the ethical issues involved in animal research and put laws in place that at the very least acknowledge that there are animal welfare issues to be considered. The prevailing defense of animal experimentation is that it is a "necessary evil" and that it is the only way to make sufficient progress. Clearly, animal research is a case with both significant externalities and ethical issues making it a likely candidate for intervention. Possible interventions include vigorously promoting alternative technologies as well as providing financial incentives to discourage animal use (i.e. taxes on research based on harm caused). More radical alternatives include prohibiting specific types of animal research. Such a policy may appear extreme, but if we are truly locked in to an inferior technology, or even a technology that is equally likely to be inferior or superior in an uncertain future, there arguably is a moral imperative to select the technology which does not lead to certain death and suffering.

In addition to providing insight into animal research, this paper has attempted to provide by analysis of an example insight into possible technological and institutional lock-in. Animal research demonstrates how one set of historical circumstances and one set of institutions can lead to possible lock-in.

This analysis has also placed particular focus on the potential for lock-in in behaviors, beliefs, and perceptions. Although North has acknowledged that this is an important component of institutional lock-in, it arguably still receives too little emphasis and is arguably the most powerful component of institutional path dependence. Behavioral lock-in is also arguably the least understood dimension of institutional path dependence. The animal research case demonstrates how known psychological biases and other considerations can cause perceptions and beliefs to resist change.

Also noteworthy in the animal research case is the role of academic institutions in path dependence. The analysis here highlights hypothesized components of the selection and enculturation processes in academic environments that can lock-in disciplinary norms and beliefs. This is potentially applicable to a variety of situations outside of animal research, such as the field of economics itself.

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