Stifled Innovation—Let's Make It Work

As there has been some talk about economists, intellectual property and patents, here is another small entry on the topic.

In regards to B.C.’s comment on Stiglitz, who feels that patents stifle innovation (this is presumably the reason for which he sells the right of his inspiring ideas to the publisher willing to pay the most) here are a number of blogs from other, arguably equally renowned economists, who willingly share their ideas for free.

The first is Brad Delong, of the University of California, Berkeley. The Economist recently described his blog as featuring a morning-coffee video-cast and an afternoon-tea audiocast. His topics are wide ranging, interesting and include topics from the Treasury to Trotsky.

Another quite interesting blog is by a professor of economics at Harvard, who was also at one point a chairman of George Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. His name is Greg Mankiw and he also uses blogspot for his blog, which I hope indicates that he is personally responsible for the maintenance of the site and doesn’t let some IT buff at Harvard do it for him. The Economist says that “his site began as a group email sent to his students, with commentary on articles and new ideas. But the market for his musings grew beyond the classroom, and a blog was the solution."

It is worth looking the article up in The Economist, I am sure it could be retrieved online. Part of the article revolved around the idea that big universities such as Berkeley and Harvard will lose some of their exclusivity if some of their most popular and sought after authors make their thoughts available for free to the public. Essentially though, it argues that by exhibiting their ideas online, professors actually serve as a kind of magnet to attract potential students to those particular universities. Not only then do they serve as a kind of advertising for learning, but they get to share their ideas and create debates. That for me is globalisation working at its best; people around the globe sharing their ideas and experiences and taking full advantage of technological advances have given us.

I am not a huge critic of Stiglitz (and certainly not a big fan) but surely he can combat “stifling innovation” by making some of his ideas freely available via a blog or a podcast and maybe, just maybe, really make globalisation work.