Intellectual Property for the Twenty-First-Century Economy

In an opinion page published in project Syndicate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dean Baker and Arjun Jayadev, write that developing countries are increasingly pushing back against the intellectual property regime foisted on them by the advanced economies over the last 30 years. Economists have recognized for decades that the most important determinant of growth and thus of gains in human development and welfare is technological change and the knowledge it embodies.

Developing economies should consider using at least these three alternatives for financing and incentivizing research; one is rely on centralized mechanisms of direct support for research to promote learning and innovation. Another is to decentralize direct funding through, or research institution can award prizes for successful innovations (or other creative activity). Read more