It is well recognized that there are imperfections in the market for knowledge
transfer due to the nature of ideas and inventions. This is consistent
with market failures commonly discussed in the economics of information
literature. Some of the impediments to efficiency axe examined here in three
essays—one empirical, one theoretical, and one case study—all of which share
the theme of scientific knowledge movement.
The first essay is empirical and measures the systematic effects of direct
interaction and geographic distance between university and firm scientists on
the economic performance of imported inventions. This study concludes that,
with respect to licensing royalties, scientific interaction has an elasticity of
approximately 3 at the mean, which is highly robust, and that distance does
not have a significant effect after controlling for interaction. This suggests
imperfections in the market for know-how that are sensitive to distance. The
second essay is a case study of an invention from the area of robotics and
control systems and augments the empirical work presented in the previous
essay by illustrating specific reasons why interaction was important for the
commercialization of one particular early stage invention.
The third essay develops a game theoretic model involving the strategic
manipulation of incentives by an incumbent to create an 'intellectual property
commons' for the purpose of preventing the commercial development
of a disruptive technology that would otherwise threaten existing industry
margins. The strategy of spoiling incentives to commercialize public sector
scientific inventions by eliminating exclusive intellectual property rights—the
strategy of the commons—is motivated by a fear of cannibalization and supported
by a credible threat. It is shown that the degree of cannibalization
to which the new technology exposes the old market is responsible for this
market failure.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11082 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Agrawal, Ajay K. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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