Institutions, culture, and open source

•Cultural and institutional factors explain the difference in OSS activities across countries.•The supply side of OSS benefits from a culture of self-determination and -fulfillment.•The supply side of OSS benefits from interpersonal trust.•The supply side of OSS benefits from enforcement of intellectual property rights.•A low degree of regulation has a positive impact on the number of OSS developers.

We analyze the impact of institutional and cultural factors on the supply side of open source software (OSS). OSS is a privately provided public good: it is marked by free access to the software and its source code, and is developed in a public, collaborative manner by thousands of volunteers as well as profit-seeking firms. Our cross-country study shows that a culture characterized by interpersonal trust and self-determination/fulfillment values has a positive impact on OSS activities and the number of developers. The supply side of OSS also benefits from the enforcement of intellectual property rights. A low degree of regulation and openness towards scientific progress has a positive impact on the number of OSS developers, but the latter not on the number of active or core developers.