Privatization of Knowledge: Did the U.S. Get It Right? (New Version)

Guido Cozzi and Silvia Galli ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: To foster innovation and growth should basic research be publicly or privately funded? This paper studies the impact of the gradual shift in the U.S. patent system towards the patentability and commercialization of the basic R&D undertaken by universities. We see this movement as making universities becoming responsive to "market" forces. Prior to 1980, universities undertook research using an exogenous stock of researchers that were motivated by "curiosity." After 1980, universities patent their research and behave as private firms. This move, in a context of two-stage inventions (basic and applied research) has an a priori ambiguous effect on innovation and welfare. We build a Schumpeterian model and match it to the data to assess this important turning point.

Keywords: R&D and Growth; Sequential Innovation; Basic Research; Patent Laws. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O34 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-01-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-edu, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/29710/1/MPRA_paper_29710.pdf original version (application/pdf)

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:pra:mprapa:29710

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().