Copyrights for books, news, and other types of media are a critical mechanism to encourage creativity and innovation. Yet economic analyses continue to be rare, partly due to a lack of experimental variation in modern copyright laws. This paper exploits a change in copyright laws as a result of...

Copyrights for books, news, and other types of media are a critical mechanism to encourage creativity and innovation. Yet economic analyses continue to be rare, partly due to a lack of experimental variation in modern copyright laws. This paper exploits a change in copyright laws as a result of...

Prizes have become a prominent alternative to patents as a mechanism to encourage innovation. This paper exploits the selection of prize-winning technologies among exhibitors at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851 to examine whether – and how – prizes may encourage...