Public Choices and Policy Change: The Political Economy of Reform in Developing Countries. By Merilee S. Grindle and John W. Thomas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. 222p. $38.50 cloth, $13.95 paper. - Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina. By Kathryn Sikkink. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. 263p. $35.00.

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 827-829 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Michael Shafer
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
Political Economy Of Reform ◽  
Ideas And Institutions

scholarly journals The Case Against Patents

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Boldrin ◽  
David K Levine
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
General Equilibrium ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Partial Equilibrium ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Equilibrium Effect ◽  
Equilibrium Effect ◽  
Over Time

The case against patents can be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to increase innovation and productivity, unless productivity is identified with the number of patents awarded—which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with measured productivity. Both theory and evidence suggest that while patents can have a partial equilibrium effect of improving incentives to invent, the general equilibrium effect on innovation can be negative. A properly designed patent system might serve to increase innovation at a certain time and place. Unfortunately, the political economy of government-operated patent systems indicates that such systems are susceptible to pressures that cause the ill effects of patents to grow over time. Our preferred policy solution is to abolish patents entirely and to find other legislative instruments, less open to lobbying and rent seeking, to foster innovation when there is clear evidence that laissez-faire undersupplies it. However, if that policy change seems too large to swallow, we discuss in the conclusion a set of partial reforms that could be implemented

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