Starting in the early 1980s, the U.S. patent regime experienced major changes that allowed the patenting of numerous scientific findings lacking in current commercial applications. We assess the rationality of these changes in the legal and institutional environment for science and technology...

The incentives to conduct basic or applied research play a central role for economic growth. How does increasing early innovation appropriability affect basic research, applied research, education, and wage inequality? This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of patent protection by...

Inspired by the Chinese experience, we develop a Schumpeterian growth model of distance to frontier in which economic growth in the developing country is driven by domestic innovation as well as imitation and transfer of foreign technologies through foreign direct investment. We show that...

Despite the huge economic value of the innovations, in European countries the yet unpatented results of the R&D activity can be stolen with little risk of criminal sanctions. By considering the anti-industrial espionage legislation in Europe, it turns out that no country has a law comparable to...

This paper introduces the monographic issue of Rivista di Politica Economica on “Intellectual Property, Competition, and Growth”. It presents the twelve contributions selected after a Callfor-Papers. The contributions deal with different facets of the protection of intellectual property...

Firm success is often associated with the development of better products. Private firms undertake applied R&D seeking market advantage, by capitalizing on the freely accessible results of basic research. But unpatentable basic research often fails to address applied R&D open problems. What is...

What is the most innovation-enhancing level of patent protection for the new ideas generated within the framework of multi-stage sequential innovation? How does increasing early innovation appropriability affect basic research, applied research, education, and wage inequality? What does the...

Brilliant ideas are key to economic growth. They often emerge from scientific discoveries with no immediate commercial value - so rewards may not be aligned to effort. Should basic research be publicly or privately funded? And, to foster innovation and growth, what kinds of discovery should be...

To foster innovation and growth should basic research be publicly or privately funded? This paper studies the impact of the gradual shift in the U.S. patent system towards the patentability and commercialization of the basic R&D undertaken by universities. We see this movement as making...

Inspired by the Chinese experience, we develop a Schumpeterian growth model of distance to frontier in which economic growth in the developing country is driven by domestic innovation as well as imitation and transfer of foreign technologies through foreign direct investment. We show that...