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The Econ Lab

The Econ Lab is Abilian's economics research laboratory. It applies the tools of economics (measurement, formal modeling, mechanism design, and reproducible computation) to questions where technology architecture and economic power meet, and where most public debate runs on anecdote.

What the lab works on

Currently, and for the foreseeable future, the lab's work is a single research programme: the economics of European digital sovereignty. The programme asks one question (through which mechanisms does dependence on foreign technology providers translate into economic and political exposure for Europe, and which interventions actually reduce that exposure) and answers it with measured dependency graphs, formal theory, game-theoretic mechanism analysis, service-level architecture measurement, and the economics of open-source adoption and supply.

The programme is organized as two wings and a bridge: the EuroStack wing (measured dependency graphs, formal theory, mechanism design, and the applied cloud-services matrix), the OSS-economics wing (the demand and supply sides of open source, with one survey in preparation), and a planned bridge paper joining them. It currently comprises nineteen draft working papers, two interactive models, and a reproducible verification suite behind every number. Start with the programme overview, browse the paper catalog, or jump straight to the plain-language summaries.

How the lab works

Three habits distinguish the output:

  1. Every number is reproducible. Each paper ships with a verify/ suite: one command regenerates every in-text figure and number, and the text's summary claims are encoded as assertions that fail the build when the prose drifts from the data.
  2. Quantitative claims clear three gates. A written proof, a numeric cross-check against brute-force computation, and Monte-Carlo robustness with the failure region characterized. Anything short of all three is labeled for what it is.
  3. Receipts, with confidence flags. Empirical claims carry sources and stated confidence; judgment calls are flagged as judgments; limitations sections are load-bearing.

Every paper published here is a draft working paper. None of it is peer-reviewed yet, and the papers say so on their first page.

Contact

The lab is led by Stéfane Fermigier. Comments on any of the papers are welcome: sf@fermigier.com.