Over the summer and early autumn of 2006, the Government of Canada has indicated its desire to remove the single-desk selling powers of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of this proposal. The main conclusion of the paper is that it will be very...

Patents provide very important incentives for innovative activity by enabling innovators to appropriate innovation rents through the granting of exclusive rights on their innovations. The limit of these exclusive rights is defined by two elements - patent length and patent breadth. Patent length...

The paper examines jointly the decision to patent, the optimal patent breadth decision and how these decisions affect, and are affected by, the innovator's ability to enforce her patent rights. A key result is that patenting may occur even when invoking an infringement trial is not profitable...

This study examines the effects that a cutback in production by Texas agricultural producers would have on the economic well-being of all producers and consumers in the stateÂ’s economy. To do this, a quadratic input-output model incorporating econometric estimates of final demand was...

The paper examines the relationship between the innovator's patenting and patent breadth decisions as well as how these two decisions affect, and are affected by, the innovator's ability to enforce her patent rights. An important feature of the model is that the entrant may be able, by his...

Carbon offset markets have been suggested as a cost effective means of reducing GHG emissions. This paper develops a model of heterogeneous emitters and producers to examine the consequences of non-compliance on the performance of the carbon-offset market. The analysis begins with the derivation...

In this paper, we show formally that cooperatives can possess an informational - and hence cost - advantage compared to For Profit Firms. This advantage is directly linked to the goal alignment between the cooperative and its members, and is influenced by the extent of income redistribution...

Innovating firms choose to patent their innovations when patenting allows the appropriation of more rents than do other forms of intellectual property protection (e.g., trade secrecy). The level of innovation rents that can be captured by the patent is mainly determined by the breadth of patent...