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Intellectual Property

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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

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Abstract

Intellectual property refers to patents, copyrights, trademarks and other forms of ownership of ideas. It results in monopoly power that has significant consequences for discouraging as well as encouraging innovation and growth. The discouragement effect is especially important when ideas are used as building blocks for other ideas. The economics literature has examined the need for intellectual property; optimal systems of intellectual property; the optimal duration of intellectual property; how innovation takes place in the absence of intellectual property; and the rent-seeking behaviour induced by intellectual property.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. http://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5

    Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine

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  1. Michele Boldrin
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  2. David K. Levine
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© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

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Boldrin, M., Levine, D.K. (2018). Intellectual Property. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2546

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