Pests, Plagues, and Patents

Timo Goeschl and Timothy Swanson

Journal of the European Economic Association, 2003, vol. 1, issue 2-3, 561-575

Abstract: The paper investigates the interaction between dynamic forms of incentive mechanisms (patent systems) and dynamic forms of problems (adaptations of pests and pathogens). Since biological problems recur, the design of the incentive mechanism must take into consideration: a) the need for investments into R&D that take into account the impermanence of the solution concepts; and b) the impact of this impermanence on the anticipated lifespan of any patent awarded for an innovation. The results indicate that patent systems must be carefully tailored to the nature of the problem under consideration. (JEL: C7, H0, H3, Q38) Copyright (c) 2003 The European Economic Association.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1542-4774/issues link to full text (text/html)
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:tpr:jeurec:v:1:y:2003:i:2-3:p:561-575

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the European Economic Association is currently edited by Xavier Vives, George-Marios Angeletos, Orazio P. Attanasio, Fabio Canova and Roberto Perotti

More articles in Journal of the European Economic Association from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().