Innovation Policy Colloquium: Michal Shur-Ofry

The Innovation Policy Colloquium focuses each year on different aspects of the law’s role in promoting creativity, invention, and new technology. This year, we will discuss the the implications of complexity for law and policy related to innovation, privacy and AI. Complexity science is a cutting-edge multi-disciplinary field that studies a wide variety of systems comprised of numerous interacting components. The human social network, the internet, social media applications, cities, biological systems and financial networks are all examples of complex systems. Complexity can lead to non-linear and surprising responses to policy initiatives, such as tipping points and feedback effects. Policymaking that is insensitive to these possibilities can go drastically awry.

Michal Shur-Ofry, Adjunct Professor of Law, NYU School of Law Spring 2026; Associate Professor, The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Scaling Ostrom: Diffusion Patterns of Institutions for Collective Action

Abstract: Informal institutions for collective action (ICAs) are bottom-up collaborations through which communities address shared challenges. Economist Elinor Ostrom famously identified ICAs as a potential solution to collective action problems, alongside the traditional approaches of top-down regulation and privatization.  Yet, ICAs are often regarded as limited solutions to macro-level problems due to their inherently local scale. We challenge this view by demonstrating that ICAs can scale through self-organized diffusion, following predictable patterns observed in complex systems. Analyzing four case studies—food co-ops, community gardens, collaborative Holocaust commemoration events, and Pride parades—we find that ICA diffusion exhibits exponential temporal growth fitting the Bass diffusion model, and spatial clustering patterns, providing empirical evidence of social contagion among ICAs. Such "scaling through contagion" allows ICAs to maintain adaptability to local context while generating macro-level impact. The complex systems perspective we apply reveals that ICAs’ potential as policy tools for addressing macro-scale collective action challenges is more significant than previously recognized. We discuss how policymakers can leverage these predictable diffusion dynamics through strategic, low-cost interventions that we term “self-expanding nudges” to steer and amplify grassroots solutions and more effectively address societal challenges.

Email Nicole Arzt if you would like to attend the colloquium. If you are outside of NYU and do not have an NYU Id then I will need to add your JRNY for building access.