Also in the current edition of the PAER, Joseph Stiglitz has an article "Prizes, not Patents". He suggests that a new system is required where the incentives to conduct medical research do not result in temporary monopoly power.
This is extremely relevant to some of the work in the Centre related to Fourth Level Ireland. There's a lot of work building on how to encourage innovation, on the micro/behavioural level, with discussions about things such as the policy emphasis to put PhD students (in science and technology etc.) through training courses that will teach them how to patent successfully. But should our energy instead be focused on thinking about alternatives to the patent system?
I noted from Stiglitz's PAER article, that he's part of a group called "Project Syndicate". This is an international association of 304 newspapers in 126 countries, devoted to the following objectives:
This is extremely relevant to some of the work in the Centre related to Fourth Level Ireland. There's a lot of work building on how to encourage innovation, on the micro/behavioural level, with discussions about things such as the policy emphasis to put PhD students (in science and technology etc.) through training courses that will teach them how to patent successfully. But should our energy instead be focused on thinking about alternatives to the patent system?
I noted from Stiglitz's PAER article, that he's part of a group called "Project Syndicate". This is an international association of 304 newspapers in 126 countries, devoted to the following objectives:
- bringing distinguished voices from across the world to local audiences everywhere;
- strengthening the independence of printed media in transition and developing countries;
- upgrading their journalistic, editorial, and business capacities.
There's some great monthly posts on it by "thought leaders" such as Rob Shiller, Ken Rogoff, Brad de Long and Jeffrey Sachs. Also worth checking out are the sections on "Science & Society" and "Health & Medicine". A veritable treasure trove.
3 comments:
Interesting post by Robert Shiller here:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/shiller37
about his reflections on this generations preferences when they make occupational choices
Yale students afraid of being replaced by computers, talk about rise of the machines! No wonder google's 20 percent time for freely working on individual projects works as it probably keeps employees sane in what seems in the main a workplace dominated by dull repetitive procedures and the potential to undergo "commoditization"!
incentive systems for innovation is definitely big up the list of things to look. there is a huge literature on the psychology of creativity and the like. but for me the new behavioural economics stuff adds a lot of value and will help mechanism design a lot.
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