General introduction -- Introduction -- A short history of the patent system -- Foundations of patent systems -- An introduction to patent law and policy instruments -- Introduction -- The optimal patent term -- Patent scope -- Patent breadth -- The non-obviousness standard -- Introduction --...

Globalisation (in the sense of increased international trade) is usually associated with gains from trade but also distributional effects where e.g. capital owners gain and workers lose, both in real terms. In recent years, globalisation seems to be synonymous to international mergers of firms....

When potential shareholders cannot observe the business conditions of the firms, the latter desiring to acquire capital by an IPO and operating under less favourable business conditions have a strong incentive to appear more successful.

We discuss the effects of AD-protection in a standard Dixit model of entry deterrence. In an AD-regime, the newcomer is constrained by a minimum-price rule in addition to existing irreversible entrance costs. For minimum prices which lie below the Stackelberg one, we find that AD-rules distort...

For a market of horizontal product differentiation, the paper examines the effects of the level of competition on the firm's decision between a product and process innovation. When firms have to choose between the two types of innovation, it is demonstrated that both firms undertake the product...

We study the impact of environmental regulations on the patent activities for wind turbines between 1980 and 2008. We explicitly control for energy market liberalisation and take a potential interaction between liberalisation and policy instruments into account. We find a strong and highly...