The internet has facilitated the creation of new markets characterized by large scale, increased customization, rapid innovation and the collection and use of detailed consumer and market data. I describe these changes and some of the economic theory that has been useful for thinking about...

At least since Arrow (1962), the effects of appropriability on invention have been well studied, but there has been little analysis of the effect of appropriability on the commercialization of existing inventions. Exploiting a database of 805 attempts by private firms to commercialize inventions...

We develop a tractable dynamic model of productivity growth and technology spillovers that is consistent with the emergence of real world empirical productivity distributions. Firms can improve productivity by engaging in in-house R&D, or alternatively, by trying to imitate other firms’...

This paper exploits a differential increase in copyright under the UK Copyright Act of 1814 - in favor of books by dead authors – to examine the influence of longer copyrights on price. Difference-in-differences analyses, which compare changes in the price of books by dead and living authors,...

Economists view intellectual property rights (IPRs) as policy tools for encouraging innovation, but they recognize that they can also inhibit competition. There are many types of IPRs and of institutions concerned with their administration. We begin by outlining how these complex and varied...

Public and private policy for the European Research Area has an important role to play in fostering and maintaining the richness and diversity of this region’s “innovation ecology”, especially with respect to the formation and reconfiguration of information connections. But some of the...

This paper reflects on the relevance of “systems-theoretic” approaches to the interdependent policy issues relating to the dynamics of science, technology and innovation and their relationship to economic growth. Considering the approach that characterizes much of the current economics...

Patent pools are agreements by multiple patent owners to license certain patents to third parties as a package, and often in conjunction with the development of a technological standard. A key distinction made by regulators—between patents essential to a standard and patents that are suitable...