Innovation and Incentives

Interest in intellectual property and other institutions that promote innovation
exploded during the 1990s. Innovation and Incentives provides a clear and wide-ranging introduction
to the economics of innovation, suitable for teaching at both the advanced undergraduate and
graduate levels. It will also be useful to legal and economics professionals. Written by an expert
on intellectual property and industrial organization, the book achieves a balanced mix of
institutional details, examples, and theory. Analytical, empirical, or institutional factors can be
given different emphases at different levels of study.Innovation and Incentives presents the
historical, legal, and institutional contexts in which innovation takes place. After a historical
overview of the institutions that support innovation, ranging from ancient history through today's
government funding and hybrid institutions, the book discusses knowledge as a public good, the
economic design of intellectual property, different models of cumulative innovation, the relation of
competition to licensing and joint ventures, patent and copyright enforcement and litigation,
private/public funding relationships, patent values and the return on R&D investment,
intellectual property issues arising from direct and indirect network externalities, and
globalization. The text presents technical and abstract analysis and at the same time sheds light on
current controversies and policy-relevant topics, including the difficulty of enforcing copyright in
the digital age and international protection of intellectual property.