Pharmaceuticals is one of the few industries in which patents are recognized as being key instruments for privately appropriating the economic benefits of innovation. Competition is largely based on innovation, and basic science is becoming increasingly crucial for the discovery and development...

Pharmaceuticals is one of the few industries in which patents are recognized as being key instruments for privately appropriating the economic benefits of innovation. Competition is largely based on innovation, and basic science is becoming increasingly crucial for the discovery and development...

Drawing on the works of Ostrom, the paper seeks to establish the bases on which the "traditional" commons (TC) and the "knowledge" commons (KC) can be compared and differentiated. Three criteria are proposed: the nature of the goods or systems of resources, the property regimes and the modes of...

This paper analyses the evolution of the intellectual property regime (IPR), and more precisely the patent regime, in the USA since the 19-th century. To do so, we consider intellectual property laws within the context of wider changes in capitalism, focusing on two main historical phases:...

The paper is devoted to an analysis of the Treaty on Stability Coordination and Governance (TSCG), also known as the "Fiscal Compact" Treaty signed between the EU member states in 2012. We argue than the TSCG, instead of helping to "repair" the institutional failures on which the Euro and the...

Based on some recent surveys, the paper is intended to offer an overview of the diffusion of organisational change in European firms and their effects in terms of performance and impact on employment. Taking into account the differences in national industrial relation systems in which the...

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In this work we discuss the impact of the new ICT techno-economic paradigm upon the vertical and horizontal boundaries of the firm and ask whether the change in the sources of competitive advantage has resulted in changes in the size distribution of firms and also in the degree of concentration...

The paper, as such a draft of a chapter for the second edition of the Handbook of Economic Socielogy, Edited by Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg), is meant to offer some sort of roadmap accross a few fields of investigation concerning the relationships between technological learning and...