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Inventors and Pirates: Creative Activity and Intellectual Property Rights

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Author Info
Herschel I. Grossman

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Abstract

This paper analyzes how both the value of ideas created as well as the security of intellectual property rights result from the choices of potentially creative people either to engage in creative activity or to be pirates, and from decisions of people who are engaged in creative activity to allocate time and effort to the guarding of ideas from pirating. An important result is that, although the existence of a small number of geniuses causes a larger fraction of potentially creative people to choose to be pirates and, consequently, makes intellectual property rights less secure, the existence of a small number of geniuses, holding fixed the average level of talent, can result in a larger value of ideas being created. The paper also recognizes the difference between the private value and the social value of the security of intellectual property rights.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7898.

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Date of creation: Sep 2000
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7898

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O31 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
O34 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Intellectual Property Rights

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Biais, Bruno & Perotti, Enrico C, 2003. "Entrepreneurs and New Ideas," CEPR Discussion Papers 3864, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Cozzi, Guido, 2001. " Inventing or Spying? Implications for Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 55-77, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. de Meza, David & Gould, J R, 1992. "The Social Efficiency of Private Decisions to Enforce Property Rights," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 561-80, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "The Firm As A Dedicated Hierarchy: A Theory Of The Origins And Growth Of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(3), pages 805-851, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Herschel I. Grossman & Minseong Kim, 2002. "Predation, Efficiency, and Inequality," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 158(3), pages 393-, September.
    Other versions:
  6. Anton, James J & Yao, Dennis A, 1994. "Expropriation and Inventions: Appropriable Rents in the Absence of Property Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 190-209, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Petra Moser, 2003. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World Fairs," NBER Working Papers 9909, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1971. "The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 561-74, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Richard C. Levin & Alvin K. Klevorick & Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 1987. "Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(1987-3), pages 783-832. [Downloadable!]
  10. Sunil Kanwar & Robert Evenson, 2003. "Does intellectual property protection spur technological change?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 235-264, April.
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  11. Gould, David M. & Gruben, William C., 1996. "The role of intellectual property rights in economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 323-350, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Herschel I. Grossman & Minseong Kim, 2003. "Educational Policy: Egalitarian or Elitist?," Economics and Politics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 15(3), pages 225-246, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. B. Zorina Khan & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 2001. "The Early Development of Intellectual Property Institutions in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 233-246, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Herschel I. Grossman, 1998. "Producers and Predators," Working Papers 98-6, Brown University, Department of Economics.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Dyuti Banerjee & Vivekananda Mukherjee, 2007. "Copyright Infringement, Product Quality and Producer’s Profit," Review of Law & Economics, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 3(3). [Downloadable!]
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