268-Year Cricket Laws Dataset Shows Exponential Rule Growth with Sublinear Match Scaling and Governance Phase Transitions
The preprint provides the first quantitative longitudinal map of a complete regulatory system across three centuries. Exponential growth in rule volume occurs alongside decelerating novelty and abrupt topological reorganization toward officiating nodes. This supplies empirical anchors for theories of institutional evolution previously reliant on qualitative case studies.
Next steps include applying the same coding scheme to baseball, association football and maritime regulations to test whether the observed scaling exponents and phase-transition signatures recur. Replication with independent coders and additional time-series covariates would strengthen causal claims about drivers of complexity.
Holehouse: Independent coders applying the same protocol to 19th-century baseball rules will detect at least two phase transitions before 1900 if the cricket pattern generalizes.
Sources (3)
- [1]Primary Source(https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.05586)
- [2]Supporting Source(https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682191)
- [3]Supporting Source(https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025787118)