Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Aiyer Ghosh, Rishab
Author-Email: ghosh@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT
Author-Name: Soete, Luc
Author-Email: soete@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT
Title: Information and intellectual property: The global challenges
Abstract: The paper analyses the contribution of 'golden papers' - seminal works 
	 whose ideas remain as fresh and relevant today as when they were first 
	 published decades ago - and which continue to dominate academic 
	 discourse among successive generations of scholars. The authors analyse 
	 why two works written within an industrial development context: The 
	 simple economics of basic scientific research, by Richard Nelson (1959) 
	 and Kenneth Arrows Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for 
	 Invention (1962), are so relevant in today’s knowledge-driven economic 
	 paradigm. Focusing on the papers’ application to current global policy 
	 debates on information/knowledge and intellectual property, they argue 
	 that while the context has changed the essential nature of innovation - 
	 driven by widespread access to the ability to replicate and improve - 
	 remains the same. Hence a focus on endogenous innovation policy is as 
	 relevant today as it was 50 years ago.  
Classification-JEL: O31, O34, O32, O17
Keywords: knowledge economy, science and technology, innovation,
	 intellectual property rights, institutional change 
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2006
Number: 029
File-URL: http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2006/wp2006-029.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2006029