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Intellectual Property Rights And Concentration In Agricultural Biotechnology William Lesser Cornell University AgBioForum Fall98 v.1, n.2 The relationships between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and structural change are examined in this paper. Intellectual property rights are a complex, multifaceted area and one in which corporate strategies are poorly understood. Nevertheless, it is argued here that IPRs can affect firm entry, can make vertical integration in downstream industries more or less necessary, and can create financial incentives for downstream mergers and acquisitions. Hence, IPRs can have significant structural impacts. Key words: intellectual property rights; agrobiotechnology; industry structure; research and development (R&D) The later 1990s have been a tumultuous time for merger and acquisition activity among firms involved in agricultural biotechnology. By the end of the third quarter of 1998, Monsanto alone had been involved in 18 acquisitions and had itself agreed and then reneged on a merger with American Home Products. In addition, Monsanto completed overseas acquisitions worth a total of $7.3 billion over two years. Novartis was formed by the merging of Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy, while DuPont chose to enter the market through joint ventures; a total of 20 joint ventures valued at over $5 billion (Moore, 1998). These mergers have contributed greatly to a restructuring of the seed industry. Most notably, Monsanto controlled up to 40 percent of seed for the 1998 United States (U.S.) soybean crop and, if approved, full acquisition of Delta & Pine Land will give Monsanto ownership of at least 80 percent of the U.S. cotton seed industry (Kilman & Warren, 1998). This is not the only incidence of major acquisition activity, a previous one occurred about 20 years earlier. Butler and Marion (1985) list 27 mergers during the period 1978-80. The 1980 date is pivotal as it marks some strengthening amendments to the United States Plant Variety Prot

THE ECONOMICS OF INNOVATION AND PRODUCTIVITY This research focuses on the development of an integrated framework for understanding the dynamics of the generation, dissemination and exploitation of technological knowledge and its effects on the growth of companies, regions and countries. It involves the use of different methodological designs, ranging from network analysis to econometrics and clinical case studies, to accommodate the variety of issues under scrutiny and to combine theoretical contributions and supporting empirical analyses. It includes several principal research lines: * Knowledge structure and productivity growth * Generation and exploitation of technological change: Market value and total factor productivity * Biased technological change and total factor productivity based on country and regional European evidence. . The topics explored within this line of research include: 1. Microeconomic analysis of the relationships between firm performance and human capital and technological knowledge. 2. Investigation of the relationships between education, scientific and technological knowledge, and regional economic growth. 3. Analysis of country and industry level productivity differentials among the industrialized countries and between industrialized and developing countries. It is hoped that this research will result in an organic heuristic structure that explains the complex and composite nature of the economic transformations in advanced countries. Recent publications Antonelli, C. and Calderini, M., 2008, 'The governance of knowledge compositeness and technological performance: The case of the automotive industry in Europe', Economics of Innovation and New Technology (17) 23-41. Antonelli, C., 2008, 'The new economics of the university: A knowledge governance approach', Journal of Technology Transfer, (33): 1-22. Antonelli, C., 2008, Localized Technological Change. Towards the Economis of Complexity, London: Routledge. Antonelli C. and T

Special Issue "Renewable Agriculture" Quicklinks Special Issue Editors Published Papers Special Issue Information Keywords Planned Papers A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 October 2009) Special Issue Editor Guest Editor Dr. Stephen S. Jones Director, Northwestern Research and Extension Center, Washington State University, Mount Vernon, Washington 98273, USA E-Mail: joness@wsu.edu Published Papers Click here to see a list of 19 papers that have been published in this special issue. Special Issue Information Dear Colleagues, For centuries the perceived need for an immediate and dramatic increase in agricultural production has been a theme throughout the developed world. But only very recently, and with less urgency, has society recognized the need for the true sustainability of agricultural production. For long-term sustainability, agriculture must have the capacity for renewal. Even the most basic forms of agriculture require an input of energy, this in essence is what defines the system as agricultural. Starting with human and animal labor, energy inputs have developed into an industrial system using fertilizers, water, seed, pest control, and other products often brought in from off the farm. While these products may increase production, for the most part they are non-renewable, require vast amounts of fuel to produce and transport, are costly, and may harm the native organisms and environment. Additionally, most seed in industrial agriculture is non-renewable due to legal and genetic mechanisms that make it problematic for farmers to save and replant what they have grown on their farms. Is a renewable agriculture with a high level of productivity possible? What research is underway to test the robustness of current systems when measured against a standard of true long-term sustainability? Stephen S. Jones, Ph. D. Guest Editor   Submission Information All papers should be submitted to

Handbook of the Economics of Innovation Set Authors  Submit Your Book Proposal Hardbound, 1400 pages Published: MAR-2010 ISBN 13: 978-0-444-53611-2 Imprint: NORTH-HOLLAND Actions    Submit Your Review    Recommend to Friend    Bookmark this Page Edited By Bronwyn H. Hall, University of California at Berkeley,CA, USA Nathan Rosenberg, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Economists examine the genesis of technological change and the ways we commercialize and diffuse it.  The economics of property rights and patents, in addition to industry applications, are also surveyed through literature reviews and predictions about fruitful research directions. - Two volumes, available as a set or sold separately Included in series Handbooks in Economics Audience: Students and researchers studying technological change.  Articles are written by economists for a multidisciplinary readership, including industry professionals, attorneys, educators, and anyone interested in new technologies. Ordering Contents Reviews Volume I: Chapters 1-16 1. Introduction to the handbook;  2.  The contribution of economic history to the study of innovation and technical change: 1750-1914;  3.  Technical change and industrial dynamics as evolutionary processes;  4.  Empirical studies of innovative activity and performance;  5.  The economics of science; 6.  University research and public-private interaction; 7.  Property rights and invention; 8.  Stylized facts in the geography of innovation; 9.  Open User Innovation; 10.  Learning by doing; 11.  Innovative conduct in computing and internet markets; 12.  Pharmaceutical innovation; 13.  Collective invention and invention networks; 14.  The financing of R&D and innovation; 15.  The market for technology; 16.  Technological innovation and the theory of the firm: The role of enterprise level knowledge, complimentarities, and (dynamic) capabilities Volume II: Chapters 17-29 17.  The diffusion of new technolog

Abstracts for papers and proposals for sessions (no more than 500 words) will be considered by the conference Scientific Committee. For sessions an overview and 3-4 abstracts should be proposed, and a session chair identified. Both, paper abstracts and session proposals should be submitted to it-apn2010@ivm.vu.nl by 15 October 2010. The conference Scientific Committee will provide decisions on selected papers and sessions by the 30 October 2010. Those invited to present will be asked to provide short papers by 15 December 2010. These will be made available on the conference website: http://umconference.um.edu.my/it-apn2011 prior to the meeting. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to make 15 minute presentations at the conference. Guidelines for Fullpaper Submission The full papers should be up to 8000 words and include title, authors names and affiliations incl. address, telephone and email, abstract, main text and references. Pls number your pages. Figures and tables should be part of the text and not a separate file. We do not define font, spacing or format - just be reasonable by avoiding extremes. The full papers should rather be submitted as pdfs for better protection but of course word files will also be accepted. Papers Accepted for Presentation 012 The development of biofuel in Indonesia from diffusion and stakeholder interactions - Joni Jupesta   014 Niche management policy to increase the market share of Alternative Fuel Vehicles : A system dynamics model of the policy effect - Tae-Hyeong Kwon   015 Enhancing Sustained Adoption of Innovations: The Case of Bio-nitrogen Fertilizer in the Philippines - Linda Penalba   016 Enabling poverty relevant bio-fertilizer bio-innovation systems - lessons from India - Sunita Sungar   017 Ethical Market: Ethnographic Encounter with Global Market, CML patients, and Glivec in South Korea - Eun Jeong Ma   018 Surge of high-input vegetable production in northern Thailand: Is the innovation pro-poor and gende

Platforms, Markets and Innovation Annabelle Gawer 0 Resenhas Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010 - 396 páginas 'In her pioneering book Platform Leadership (with Michael Cusumano), Gawer gave us the strategy of building coalitions of customers, suppliers, and complementors. Now, she brings together a number of the leading researchers in the area of platform strategy to give us a book that will be a key reference for both practitioners and academics. Adam Brandenburger, New York University, US 'Annabelle Gawer's collected volume of research shows that a vibrant community of scholars has arisen around platforms and innovation. Each of the chapters is first rate, with top researchers offering some of their latest work. This will be an indispensable book for students of innovation and technology management everywhere. Henry Chesbrough, University of California, Berkeley, US 'Annabelle Gawer's Platforms, Markets and Innovation is the first serious exploration of the critical but subtle role that platforms play in business, society and our personal lives. As digital technologies penetrate every nook and cranny of the world around us, we rely on platforms to both help us use the new technologies, as well as to organize new markets of innovation that add applications on top of the platforms and make them far more valuable. Dr Gawer's excellent book is designed to help us understand the mysterious nature of platforms. It brings together the insights of twenty-four experts around the world who contributed to the fourteen chapters of the book. Dr Gawer's book is invaluable to anyone trying to understand the nuanced nature of platforms, and their implications for the evolution of innovation in the 21st century. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM Academy of Technology, US The emergence of platforms is a novel phenomenon impacting most industries, from products to services. Industry platforms such as Microsoft Windows or Google, embedded within industrial ecosystems, have redesigned our in

THE ECONOMICS OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Innovation is acknowledged to be a multidimensional and complex process. Thus, traditional research and development (R&D) expenditures capture only a portion of the sources of and activities involved in innovation. Innovation investment includes: a) basic research; b) product development; c) adoption of new production techniques and technologies; d) organizational change; e) distribution and market changes; f) production organization and access to production factors; and g) training and the development of new skills. Traditional in-house R&D investment is being complemented by external sources of innovation and new knowledge. Recent contributions in the economics of knowledge and innovation highlight that innovation is a cooperative and collective process. Collaboration between firms, and between firms and universities, R&D centres and technology transfer centres is a strategy aimed at the sharing of knowledge and competencies, and obtaining the benefits of technological complementarities. Innovation is rarely the result of individual firm efforts; it generally emerges from the interactions among local firms and institutions within a network of innovators. This research is aimed at identifying, understanding and classifying the different ways firms innovate, distinguishing between internal and external sources. Special emphasis is put on understanding the multiple organizational forms involved in innovation and the problems encountered by economic agents and their organizations in acquiring and coordinating their innovative capabilities. The theoretical framework developed is tested on the automotive industry. Recent publications

Innovation and Growth: Chasing a Moving Frontier Vandana Chandra, Pier Carlo Padoan, Deniz Eröcal, Carlos A. Primo Braga 0 Resenhas OECD Publishing, 2009 - 264 páginas Innovation is crucial to long-term economic growth, even more so in the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis. Making innovation-driven growth happen requires action in a wide range of policy areas, from education and science and technology to product and labour markets and trade. The OECD and the World Bank are joining forces to work more closely on innovation, particularly insofar as this issue is a crucial factor in the success of development policy, notably in middle-income economies. In this volume, the two organisations jointly take stock of how globalisation is posing new challenges for innovation and growth in both developed and developing countries, and how countries are coping with them. The authors discuss options for policy initiatives that can foster technological innovation in the pursuit of faster and sustainable growth. The various chapters highlight how the emergence of an integrated global market affects the impact of national innovation policy. What seemed like effective innovation strategies (e.g. policies designed to strengthen the R&D capacity of domestic firms) are no longer sufficient for effective catch-up. The more open and global nature of innovation makes policies for innovation more difficult to design and implement at the national scale alone. These challenges are further complicated by new phenomena, such as global value chains and the fragmentation of production, the growing role of global corporations, and the ICT revolution. Where and why a global corporation chooses to anchor its production affects the playing field for OECD and developing economies alike.

Freedom to Innovate: Biotechnology in Africa's Development Report of the High-Level African Panel on Modern Biotechnology Report, African Union and New Partnership for Africa's Development August 2007 Authors: Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa, Ismail Serageldin Belfer Center Programs or Projects: Science, Technology, and Globalization; Science, Technology, and Public Policy; Agricultural Innovation in Africa   This report is about the role of biotechnology in the transformation of African economies. The implications of its recommendations, however, need to be seen beyond the confines of biological innovations. They address critical issues related to Africa's place in a globalizing economy. Undertaken at the request of heads of state and government this report demonstrates what is needed to build the required capacity to harness and apply biotechnologies to improve agricultural productivity, public health, industrial development, economic competitiveness, and environmental sustainability (including biodiversity conservation) in Africa. It also shows that the measures needed to address biotechnology will strengthen Africa's capacity to adapt other technologies to economic development. In fact, previous inabilities to build capacity in fields such as information technology hamper the continent's efforts in biotechnology. This report has placed these systemic considerations in the context of the role of innovation in economic transformation. It challenges Africa's heads of state and government to take seriously the importance of a coordinated approach in promoting technological innovation in development. African governments have recognized the importance of regional cooperation to address possibilities and the range of issues associated with biotechnology. Within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's De

Over the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in the quantity and quality of research focused on the processes through which technological capabilities are acquired by countries significantly behind the economic frontier, and the institutions that effectively support the catching up process. This book is a splendid contribution to this literature. The concept of a "sectoral innovation system" is well suited for framing studies of these kinds of questions, and serves well to unify the many interesting empirical studies in the book. Some of those studies are success stories, others of less successful cases. Readers new to this body of research will find this book a great introduction. All readers will learn a lot from it about what is required for and involved in economic development.' Richard R. Nelson, Columbia Earth Institute, US and University of Manchester, UK This book examines in detail the features and dynamics of sectoral systems of innovation and production in developing countries. Processes of rapid growth are usually associated with specific sectors such as automobiles, electronics or software, as well as with the transformation of traditional sectors such as agriculture and food. The book shows, however, that the variations across all these sectors in terms of structure and dynamics is so great that a full understanding of these differences is necessary if innovation is to be encouraged and growth sustained. The expert contributors promote this understanding by drawing upon empirical evidence from a wide range of sectoral systems, from traditional to high technology, and across a number of countries. They explore how these systems change and evolve, highlighting policy lessons to be drawn from the analysis. Case studies include the Brazilian aeronautical, pulp and paper industries, the Korean machine tool sector, motorbike manufacture in Thailand and Vietnam, pharmaceuticals and telecommunication equipment in India, ICT in Taiwan, the biofuels s

Modern societies face several structural problems such as transport congestion and greenhouse gas emissions due to the widespread use of fossil fuels. To address these important societal problems and achieve sustainability in the broad sense, major transformations are required, but this poses an enormous challenge given the complexity of the processes involved. Such transformations are called 'transitions' or 'system innovations' and involve changes in a variety of elements, including technology, regulation, user practices and markets, cultural meaning and infrastructure. This book considers two main questions: how do system innovations or transitions come about and how can they be influenced by different actors, in particular by governments. The authors identify the theories which can be used to conceptualise the dynamics of system innovations and discuss the weaknesses in these theories. They also look at the lessons which can be learned from historical examples of transitions, and highlight the instruments and policy tools which can be used to stimulate future system innovations towards sustainability. The expert contributors address these questions using insights from a variety of different disciplines including innovation studies, evolutionary economics, the sociology of technology, environmental analysis and governance studies. The book concludes with an extensive summary of the results and practical suggestions for future research. This important new volume offers an interdisciplinary assessment of how and why system innovations occur. It will engage and inform academics and researchers interested in transitions towards sustainability, and will also be highly relevant for policymakers concerned with environmental issues, structural change and radical innovation.

novation by demand: an interdisciplinary approach to the study of demand and its role in innovation Andrew McMeekin 0 Resenhas Manchester University Press, 2002 - 214 páginas This book brings together a range of sociologists and economists to study the role of demand and consumption in the innovative process. It begins with a broad conceptual overview of ways that the sociological and economics literatures address issues of innovation, demand, and consumption. It goes on to offer different approaches to the economics of demand and innovation through an evolutionary framework, before reviewing how consumption fits into evolutionary models of economic development.

Special Issue: Innovation and Dynamic Efficiency in Agricultural Biotechnology Guest editors: James F. Oehmke, Carl Pray, and Anwar Naseem Preface: Innovation and Dynamic Efficiency in Agricultural Biotechnology J.F. Oehmke, C.E. Pray, & A. Naseem Innovation and Dynamic Efficiency in Plant Biotechnology: An Introduction to the Researchable Issues C.E. Pray, J.F. Oehmke, & A. Naseem Who is Doing What? Intellectual Property Rights in a Changing Political Environment: Perspectives on the Types and Administration of Protection W. Lesser Patterns of Public-Sector and Private-Sector Patenting in Agricultural Biotechnology P.W. Heisey, J.L. King, & K. Day Rubenstein Mergers, Acquisitions, and Stocks of Agricultural Biotechnology Intellectual Property J.L. King & D.E. Schimmelpfennig An Innovation Market Approach to Analyzing Impacts of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Plant Biotechnology Industry M. Brennan, C.E. Pray, A. Naseem, & J.F. Oehmke Does Plant Variety Intellectual Property Protection Improve Farm Productivity? Evidence From Cotton Varieties A. Naseem, J.F. Oehmke, & D.E. Schimmelpfennig What are the Current Effects of Industry Structure? Intellectual Property Rights on Research Tools: Incentives or Barriers to Innovation? Case Studies of Rice Genomics and Plant Transformation Technologies C.E. Pray & A. Naseem Property Rights and Incentives to Invest in Seed Varieties: Governmental Regulations in Argentina J.P. Kesan & A.A. Gallo Monopoly Power, Price Discrimination, and Access to Biotechnology Innovations A.K.A. Acquaye & G. Traxler Whither Biotechnology Research? Can Technology Transfer Help Public-Sector Researchers Do More with Less? The Case of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service K. Day Rubenstein & P.W. Heisey Second-Generation GMOs: Where to from Here? K.Y. Jefferson-Moore & G. Traxler Articles Bt Corn Farmer Compliance with Insect Resistance Management Requirements in Minnesota and Wisconsin J. Goldberger, J. Merrill, & T. Hurley Perceptions

"After almost fifteen years in the laboratory and in the test plots, bioengineered crops arrived to the market in the mid-1990s. Adoption was rapid and widespread. In 1996, less than 4 million acres in six countries were planted with bioengineered plants. By 2001, worldwide adoption had expanded to more than 115 million acres." The foretelling of a scientific revolution has persistently raised expectations on the potential of agrobiotechnology, and first-generation agrobiotechnologies have had to confront such expectations in the field and in the market. The Economics and Environmental Impacts of Agbiotech: A Global Perspective explains how well they have fared. It brings together leading authors from around the world who have analyzed the production, environmental and economic impacts of first generation agrobiotechnologies. By pooling experiences across various countries, time periods, crops, and traits this global panel synthesizes a complete picture of the impacts of first generation agrobiotechnologies. The Economics and Environmental Impacts of Agbiotech: A Global Perspective offers this assessment, accounting for the full range of differences in geography, weather, pests, farm structures and institutions that had not been completed previously, and answers these important questions: *What were the factors driving the widespread adoption of these first generation agrobiotechnologies? *What were their economic and environmental impacts? *How were such impacts distributed among innovators and adopters, developed and developing countries, exporters and importers, domestic and foreign consumers? *How were such impacts and their distribution affected by market structures and government policies?

rom regional systems of innovation to regions as innovation policy spaces Elvira Uyarra, Kieron Flanagan Received 7 April 2009; in revised form 14 January 2010 Abstract. The regional systems of innovation concept is well established in academic and practitioner discourses about innovation and economic development. As with the innovation systems approach more generally, the use of the concept has expanded significantly from its initial analytical purpose and has been extensively used to inform policy making. We identify a number of dangers associated with the use of regional systems of innovation as a normative concept which both overstates and at the same time underemphasises the roles regions play as policy-making and implementation spaces. These issues are explored in the paper with an illustration of the North West region of England

What explains the national economic success of the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan? What can be learned from the long-term championship performances of leading business firms in each country? How important were specific innovations by individual entrepreneurs? And in the end, what is the true nature of capitalist development? The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Thomas K. McCraw and his coauthors present penetrating answers to these questions. Creating Modern Capitalism is the first book to explain for a broad audience the interconnections among technological innovation, management science, the power of entrepreneurship, and national economic growth. The authors approach each question from a comparative framework and with a unique triple focus on national economic systems, particular companies, and individual business leaders. Above all, the book focuses on how specific entrepreneurs influenced the economic success of their countries: Josiah Wedgwood and Henry Royce in Britain; August Thyssen and Georg von Siemens in Germany; Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and the two Thomas J. Watsons in the United States; Sakichi Toyoda, Masatoshi Ito, and Toshifumi Suzuki in Japan. The product of a three-year collaborative effort at the Harvard Business School, the book combines cutting-edge scholarship with a finely tuned sense of the art of management. It will engage general readers as well as those with a special interest in entrepreneurship and the evolution of national business systems.

Prophet of innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction Thomas K. McCraw 15 Resenhas Harvard University Press, 2007 - 719 páginas Producer: Heron & Crane Pan Am, Gimbel's, Pullman, Douglas Aircraft, Digital Equipment Corporation, British Leyland--all once as strong as dinosaurs, all now just as extinct. Destruction of businesses, fortunes, products, and careers is the price of progress toward a better material life. No one understood this bedrock economic principle better than Joseph A. Schumpeter. "Creative destruction," he said, is the driving force of capitalism. Described by John Kenneth Galbraith as "the most sophisticated conservative" of the twentieth century, Schumpeter made his mark as the prophet of incessant change. His vision was stark: Nearly all businesses fail, victims of innovation by their competitors. Businesspeople ignore this lesson at their peril--to survive, they must be entrepreneurial and think strategically. Yet in Schumpeter's view, the general prosperity produced by the "capitalist engine" far outweighs the wreckage it leaves behind. During a tumultuous life spanning two world wars, the Great Depression, and the early Cold War, Schumpeter reinvented himself many times. From boy wonder in turn-of-the-century Vienna to captivating Harvard professor, he was stalked by tragedy and haunted by the specter of his rival, John Maynard Keynes. By 1983--the centennial of the birth of both men--Forbes christened Schumpeter, not Keynes, the best navigator through the turbulent seas of globalization. Time has proved that assessment accurate. Prophet of Innovation is also the private story of a man rescued repeatedly by women who loved him and put his well-being above their own. Without them, he would likely have perished, so fierce were the conflicts between his reason and his emotions. Drawing on all of Schumpeter's writings, including many intimate diaries and letters never before used, this biography paints the full portrait of a magn

The slowdown of growth in Western industrialized nations in the last twenty years, along with the rise of Japan as a major economic and technological power (and enhanced technical sophistication of Taiwan, Korea, and other NICs) has led to what the authors believe to be a "techno-nationalism." This combines a strong belief that technological capabilities of a nation's firms are a key source of their competitive process, with a belief that these capabilities are in a sense national, and can be built by national action. This book is about these national systems of technical innovation. The heart of the work contains studies of seventeen countries--from large market-oriented industrialized ones to several smaller high income ones, including a number of newly industrialized states as well. Clearly written, this work highlights institutions and mechanisms which support technical innovation, showing similarities, differences, and their sources across nations, making this work accessible to students as well as the scholars of innovation.

Schumpeter, Joseph A (1883-1950)     R. Swedberga aStockholm University, Sweden Abstract Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883-1950) is generally considered one of the major economists of the twentieth century. His main effort was to develop a theory of economic change that could complement Walras' theory of general equilibrium. Schumpeter centered his theory of economic change around the entrepreneur, and in Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (1912, tr. 1934) he defined entrepreneurship as 'the carrying out of new combinations.' The initial innovation, according to Schumpeter, attracted other entrepreneurs and eventually set off a business cycle. Schumpeter's best known work is Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942), which is regarded as a classic not only in economics but also in political science. Several of Schumpeter's analyses in this work are still controversial in nature, such as his suggestion that monopolies can be healthy for the economy and that modern capitalism is digging its own grave and preparing the road for socialism. The most celebrated contribution of this work, however, is to be found in Schumpeter's discussion of democracy, more precisely in his critique of the traditional way of defining democracy as an attempt to realize the will of the people and in his own preference for a definition of democracy as competition among political leaders for the votes of the citizens.

For most countries, economic development involves a process of "catching up" with leading countries at the time. This is never achieved solely by physical assets and labor alone: also needed are the accumulation of technological capabilities, educational attainment, entrepreneurship, and the development of the necessary institutional infrastructure. One element of this infrastructure is the regime of intellectual property rights (IPR), particularly patents. Patents may promote innovation and catch up, and they may foster formal technology transfer. Yet they may also prove to be barriers for developing countries that intend to acquire technologies through imitation and reverse engineering. The current move to harmonize the IPR system internationally, such as the TRIPS agreement, may thus have unexpected consequences for developing countries. This book explores these issues through an in depth study of eleven countries ranging from early developers (the USA, Nordic Countries and Japan), and Post World War 2 countries (Korea, Taiwan, Israel) to more recent emerging economies (Argentina, Brazil, China, India and Thailand). With contributions from international experts on innovation systems, this book will be an invaluable resource for academics and policymakers in the fields of economic development, innovation studies and intellectual property laws.