Innovation and Intellectual Property: Theory and Practice

3 units

Innovation - that is: figuring out better and cheaper ways of satisfying human desires - is the key to improving our well being. It is not patient saving and accumulation that makes us so much better off than we used to be: capital accumulation is only the conduit through which the innovation juices flow. The question is what drives it? How come some societies are apparently much more innovative than others? How come we have the impression that most useful inventions took place in the last three centuries? Are there policies that help fostering innovation and others that hurt? The course tries to address these questions. Economists have many theories of innovation, and some better than others. We will look at the theories, we will examine the facts (past and present), then we will go back to the theories and reconsider their explanatory power. With this background we approach the debate about Intellectual Property, what it is and what it is not good for, whose interests it serves and whose well being it thwarts. Prerequisite: Econ 4011.