Knowledge Enclosures, Forced Specializations and Investment Crisis

Filippo Belloc () and Ugo Pagano

Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena

Abstract: Like land before the industrial revolution, much knowledge is being enclosed in private hands. These enclosures have become a major factor in specialization among firms and among countries: both are forced to specialize in the fields that are not restricted by the enclosures of the others. This forced specialization is highly asymmetric and involves strong self-reinforcing innovation patterns: we show that it is mainly driven by the existing knowledge enclosures, and that it polarizes investment opportunities among firms and, even more so, among countries. Moreover, also the world economy as a whole suffers from this restriction of investment opportunities, which, in our view, is one of the factors contributing to the present crisis.

Keywords: IPRs; innovation; knowledge enclosure; technological specialization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F55 L20 O34 P17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino and nep-knm
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Knowledge Enclosures, Forced Specializations and Investment Crisis (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usi:wpaper:601

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