From the perspective of antitrust authorities, the multiplication of patents embodied in technology standards is a source of concerns. Certainly it is necessary and efficient that patents owners derive a revenue from the use of the standard. Yet by their function - ensuring compatibility between...

Open Source Software is often viewed as an anti-intellectual property regime. By contrast, we argue how IP law is at the heart of open source model since licenses that organize the innovation and business relationships between developers, distributors and end-users are based on copyright law....

This paper formalizes ideas from classical and radical political economy on task allocation and technology adoption under capitalism. A few previous studies have attempted this, but the framework and results in this paper are different. I model labor contracts that are incomplete owing to...

We generalize the standard search, matching, and bargaining framework to allow individuals to acquire productivity-enhancing schooling prior to labor market entry. As is well-known, search frictions and weakness in bargaining position contribute to under-investment from an efficiency...

We relate the design of contract law to the process of development. In this paper, contract law defines which private agreements are enforceable (i.e. are binding and enforced by courts) and which are not. Specically, we consider an economy where agents face a hold-up problem (moral hazard in...

In this paper, we consider a knowledge accumulation problem within an organization. We depart from the human capital theory initiated by Becker (1962, 1964) and consider an organization that cannot prevent the worker from quitting and using the knowledge outside the organization. We study how...

Mutual aid often entails the sharing of knowledge. We investigate how, in turn, knowledge sharing affects the long-run dynamics of mutual aid. In our economy, agents with specific knowledge are “held up” by their principals. Inside communities, agents aid each other by sharing their specific...

This “systematic review” focuses on the empirical research that evaluates the causal link between contract enforcement and investment. The evidence available in a variety of academic media, reviewed with established procedures, provides some but weak support for the existence of such link....

This paper employs a unique Italian data source to take a comprehensive approach to labour market pooling. It jointly considers many different aspects of the agglomeration — labour market relationship, including turnover, learning, matching, and hold up. It also considers labour market pooling...

We study several interconnected problems that arise under the current U.S. patent system when a patent covers one component or feature of a complex product. This situation is common in the information technology sector of the economy. Our analysis applies to cases involving reasonable royalties,...