EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Knowledge properties and economic policy: A new look

Cristiano Antonelli

Science and Public Policy, 2018, vol. 45, issue 2, 151-158

Abstract: This article explores the full range of effects of knowledge properties and explains how knowledge properties such as transient appropriability, non-exhaustibility, and indivisibility do not only have negative effects, but also positive ones. Knowledge externalities help reduce the cost of knowledge and imitation externalities reduce the revenue and profitability of innovations. Their effects need to be considered jointly in a single analytical framework. An analysis of their combined effects questions the scope of application of the ‘Arrovian postulate’ according to which the limited appropriability of knowledge due to its uncontrolled dissemination reduces invention. This ignores spillovers of outside knowledge, which increases invention. These are the two opposing faces of the limited appropriability of knowledge. Policy implications suggest that along with public interventions designed to support the supply of knowledge and to compensate for missing incentives, much attention should be paid to all interventions that favour the dissemination of knowledge and the knowledge connectivity of the system.

Keywords: knowledge properties; knowledge spillovers; technology production function; knowledge production function; appropriability trade-off (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/scipol/scx070 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:45:y:2018:i:2:p:151-158.

Access Statistics for this article

Science and Public Policy is currently edited by Nicoletta Corrocher, Jeong-Dong Lee, Mireille Matt and Nicholas Vonortas

More articles in Science and Public Policy from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:oup:scippl:v:45:y:2018:i:2:p:151-158.