There is a research tradition in the economics of standards which addresses standards wars, antitrust concerns or positive externalities from standards. Recent research has also dealt with the process characteristics of standardisation, de facto standard-setting consortia and intellectual...

This paper discusses alternative incentive mechanisms for encouraging pharmaceutical innovations that support global health policy priorities. Patent buyouts, in which a public fund pays a mark-up on private valuations from sealed-bid second-price auctions, would boost the efficiency of research...