We analyze the relationship between economic growth, knowledge production and intellectual property rights. Economists and historians underline different aspects as possible causes of knowledge accumulation; the former stress the role of incentive mechanisms while the latter the autonomous...

The legal monopoly granted by the patent system has often been criticized for its inefficiency, which is exacerbated by the peculiarities of knowledge as a public good. In this paper we aim at studying more deeply the latter concern. Hence we build a model in which monopolistic exploitation does...