We study the effect of the fragmentation of intellectual property rights on optimal patent design. The major finding is that when several complementary innovative components must be assembled to operate a new technology, the patentability requirements should be stronger than in the case of...

This paper presents an integrated overview of the literature linking institutions, financial development and economic growth. From the large body of research on institutional development, the paper first selects those contributions that make it possible to study the role of institutional...

Over a quarter of the world's population lives in economies that have undertaken transitions from central planning to market economies. These transitions entail far-reaching and complex changes in social, economic and political institutions and have had widely divergent outcomes. Important...

Why has the expansion of women's economic and political rights coincided with economic development? This paper investigates this question, focusing on a key economic right for women: property rights. The basic hypothesis is that the process of development (i.e., capital accumulation and...

This paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence on the nexus between corruption and democracy. We establish a political economy model where the effect of democracy on corruption is conditional on income distribution and property rights protection. Our empirical analysis with...

An important issue in the life sciences industries concerns the nature of the incentive mechanism that should govern the production of innovation within this R&D sector. We look at the specific problem of coordinating the supply of inputs across very different agents - North and South - that...