Innovations that enhance our wellbeing are a hallmark of capitalism. Making the most of human creativity and inventiveness is a public policy challenge Show
Around the turn of the present century, South Africa had one of the highest rates of people living with HIV in the world: about 5 million South Africans, 1 in 10 of the population, were HIV positive. But in 1998, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and 37 other multinational pharmaceutical companies brought a lawsuit against the government of South Africa, seeking to prevent it from importing generic (non-brand name) drugs, other inexpensive antiretroviral drugs, and other AIDS treatments from around the world. Street protests erupted in South Africa, and both the European Union and the World Health Organization announced their support for the South African government’s position. Al Gore, then US vice president, who had represented the interests of pharmaceutical companies in negotiations with South Africa, was confronted by AIDS activists chanting, ‘Gore’s greed kills!’ In September 1999, the US government—previously the drug companies’ strongest ally—said that it would not impose sanctions on poor countries that are affected by the HIV epidemic, even if US patent laws were broken, so long as the countries abided by international treaties governing intellectual property. The pharmaceutical giants pushed back, engaging an army of intellectual property rights lawyers to promote their case. They closed factories in South Africa and cancelled planned investments. But three years later, with millions of dollars spent on litigation and with the even greater cost to their reputations, the companies backed down (even paying the South African government’s legal fees). Jean-Pierre Garnier, the chief executive officer of GlaxoSmithKline, telephoned Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, to ask him to help make a deal with President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. ‘We’re not insensitive to public opinion. That is a factor in our decision-making,’ Garnier later explained.1 2 It was too late: the damage had already been done. ‘This has been a public relations disaster for the companies,’ commented Hemant Shah, an industry analyst. ‘The probability of any drug company suing a developing country on a life-saving medicine is now extremely low based on what they learned in South Africa.’ Of course, pharmaceutical company owners cannot sell an AIDS treatment at less than what it cost them to manufacture it and still stay in business. Moreover, few of the industry’s research projects lead to a marketable product (research in 2016 estimated the industry’s success rate as just over 4%). The sales of a successful product must therefore cover the costs of many failed projects because, of course, it is impossible to predict which research projects will succeed. In this instance, the drug companies went to court in South Africa to protect their patents. In the pharmaceutical industry, the patent system gives the innovating company a time-limited monopoly that allows the company to charge a price much higher than the cost of producing the drug (sometimes by a factor of 10) during the years of patent protection. The prospect of high profits provides an incentive for companies to invest in risky research and development. By creating a government-imposed monopoly, patent protection often conflicts with the equally important objective of making goods and services available at their marginal cost (recall from Unit 7 that a monopolist will set a price above the marginal cost). The high price—sufficient to cover the cost of research and development, including investments on failed projects—means that many of those who could benefit from access to the drug will not get it. This is an example of the deadweight efficiency losses resulting from monopoly pricing studied in Unit 7. Conflicts between competing objectives—in this case, the production of new knowledge on the one hand and its rapid diffusion on the other—are unavoidable in the economy, and are particularly difficult to resolve when they concern innovation, as we will see. But sometimes, new technologies allow for win-win outcomes. Recall the problem of the fishermen and fish buyers of Kerala that we described at the beginning of Unit 11. On returning to port to sell their daily catch of sardines to fish dealers, fishermen often found that there was excess supply in the market. The result was higher prices for the consumer, on average, and lower incomes for the fishermen.3 4 law of one priceHolds when a good is traded at the same price across all buyers and sellers. If a good were sold at different prices in different places, a trader could buy it cheaply in one place and sell it at a higher price in another. See also: arbitrage.When the fishermen got mobile phones, they would phone the many coastal fish markets from out at sea, and pick the one where the prices that day were highest. The mobile phone made it possible to implement the law of one price in Keralan fish markets, to the benefit of fishermen and consumers. It was not entirely win-win, however. The mobile phones greatly increased the competition among the dealers who were the intermediaries between fishermen and buyers, because a fisherman could bargain for higher prices before choosing which market to enter. The dealers were the losers from this innovation. But the mobile phone had much weaker effects in other parts of the world, such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in India, where the lack of roads and storage facilities prevented farmers from profiting from information on price differences. A small farmer in Allahabad remarked that price information that he could get on his phone was not worth much to him because there were ‘no roads to go there’. In this case the innovation was of little use, because of a lack of public investment in the necessary infrastructure. Similarly, when mobile phones came to Niger, in West Africa, farmers lacked the means to transport their cowpeas and other crops to alternative markets, and so traders who transported the goods took much of the benefit. The fishermen did not face this problem because the boats used to catch the fish were also a means of transport, allowing them to choose among markets. In this unit, we will show how economic concepts can make sense of the South African government’s policies to make AIDS treatments more widely available, the conflict that the policies caused, and the contrasting impact of the mobile phone on fishermen in Kerala and farmers in other Indian states. To understand innovation, you will have to forget about the image of an eccentric inventor, working alone, creating a ‘better mousetrap,’ and getting rich as a reward for the public benefit of his inspiration. Innovation is not a one-off event set off by a spark of genius. Instead:
We discuss innovation as a process and as a system in the next two sections.
21.1 The innovation process: Invention and diffusioninnovationThe process of invention and diffusion considered as a whole.inventionThe development of new methods of production and new products.diffusionThe spread of the invention throughout the economy. See also: diffusion gap.process innovationAn innovation that allows a good or service to be produced at lower cost than its competitors.product innovationAn innovation that produces a new good or service at a cost that will attract buyers.innovation rentsProfits in excess of the opportunity cost of capital that an innovator gets by introducing a new technology, organizational form, or marketing strategy. Also known as: Schumpeterian rents.We begin with a few new terms. We use the word innovation to refer to both the development of new methods of production and new products (invention) and the spread of the invention throughout the economy (diffusion). An innovating firm can produce a good or service at a cost lower than its competitors, or a new good at a cost that will attract buyers. The first is called a process innovation and the second is called a product innovation. Invention and innovationThe descriptive term invention is sometimes reserved for major breakthroughs, but we use it to refer to: Radical innovationRadical innovation introduces a brand new technology or idea that had not been previously available. The invention of incandescent lighting (producing light by running electricity through a filament) was a major advance over light made by burning oil or kerosene. The MP3 format allowed music to be compressed in a manner that enabled easy storage on hard drives and transmission over the Internet, offering a vastly different way to store music than CD or vinyl. Incremental innovationThis improves an existing product or process cumulatively. After Edison and Swan patented their designs for the incandescent electric light bulb in 1880 and started working together in 1883, all subsequent improvements in the filament that generates the light were incremental innovations in lighting. You have already learned about the incremental improvement of the spinning jenny, one of the major inventions of the Industrial Revolution, which began with just eight spindles and eventually operated hundreds.5 6 Many of the concepts that are useful for the study of innovation have already been introduced in earlier units. They are listed in Figure 21.1, and you will encounter them again throughout this unit. Before going on, make sure you understand these concepts.
Figure 21.1 Concepts relevant to innovation that you have studied. Recall from Unit 2 that at the going price, a company introducing a successful invention makes profits in excess of the profits that other firms make, termed innovation rents. In Figure 21.2, the research, development, and implementation costs of undertaking an innovation are shown along with the temporary innovation rents (profits above the opportunity cost of capital) from a successful invention. DiffusionThe prospect of these innovation rents then induces others to try to copy the invention. If they are successful, the temporary rents of the innovator are eventually entirely competed away. The result of this copying process is that eventually the initial innovator will again earn profits that just cover the opportunity cost of capital, so economic profit returns to zero. Latecomers are also eventually pushed to adopt the innovation, because the falling prices that result when the new methods become widely adopted typically mean that sticking with the old technology is a recipe for bankruptcy. A firm that does not innovate will make negative economic profits, meaning that its revenues fail to cover the opportunity cost of capital. This carrot-and-stick combination of the promise of rents from successful innovation and the threat of bankruptcy if firms fail to keep up with innovators has proved a powerful force in reducing the amount of labour required to produce goods and services, thereby raising our living standards. Fullscreen Figure 21.2 The costs and rents associated with innovations. general-purpose technologiesTechnological advances that can be applied to many sectors, and spawn further innovations. Information and communications technology (ICT), and electricity are two common examples.Although there have been inventions throughout human history, the acceleration of the innovation process started in England around 1750 (as we saw in Unit 2) with some key new technologies introduced in textiles, energy, and transportation. It did not end with the Industrial Revolution. Important new technologies with applications to many industries such as the steam engine, electricity, and transportation (canals, railroads, automobiles, airplanes) are called general-purpose technologies. William Nordhaus, an economist whose analysis of the discount rate applied to environmental problems you read about in Unit 20, has estimated the speed of computation using an index that has a value of 1 for the speed of a computation done by hand (like dividing one number by another). For example, in 1920 a Japanese abacus master could perform computations 4.5 times faster than a mathematically competent person could do the same calculation by hand. This difference had probably been constant for many centuries, because the abacus is an ancient computational device. But sometime around 1940, computational speed takes off. The IBM 1130 introduced in 1965 was 4,520 times faster than hand computation (and as you can see, it was below the line of best fit through the data points from 1920). Fullscreen Figure 21.3 Innovation in computing power: Index of computing speed. Particular examples are shown in colour and labelled. innovation systemThe relationships among private firms, governments, educational institutions, individual scientists, and other actors involved in the invention, modification, and diffusion of new technologies, and the way that these social interactions are governed by a combination of laws, policies, knowledge, and social norms in force.The most recent entry in Figure 21.3, the SiCortex supercomputer, performs more than 1 billion computations per second. It is more than a quadrillion (count the zeros) times faster than you, and it is well above a line of best fit through the data points from 1920, so there is no indication that the process is slowing down. But as the ‘When economists disagree’ box shows, engineers and economists disagree over whether improvements in computation or any other technology will continue at the pace given in Nordhaus’s chart, or instead will return to the modest pace of improvement that prevailed over most of human history.7 The stepped line in Figure 21.2 illustrated a simple theory of innovation and diffusion of technical progress. It clarifies how innovation rents, costs of innovation, and the copying of innovations are interrelated from the standpoint of a firm or individual that wants to develop a new product or process. To understand this process, we need to know how inventions actually happen, how the costs and rents are decided, and when the process of copying takes place. To do this, we have to go beyond the point of view of the single firm in Figure 21.2 and think of innovation as the product of interactions among firms, the government, educational institutions, and many other players in the innovation system.
Question 21.1 Choose the correct answer(s)Which of the following statements regarding innovation is correct?
21.2 Innovation systemsInnovative activities are not spread evenly across the globe or even across a country. Think of the area now known as Silicon Valley in California, once a sleepy farming area centred on Santa Clara Valley. Silicon Valley got its nickname when high-growth firms in computing and semiconductor design moved in, later joined by innovators in biotech. In 2010, in a single US postal area (ZIP code 95054) in the centre of Silicon Valley, 20,000 patents were registered. Patent attorneys cluster in this part of Santa Clara. If this small area of 16.2 km2 were a country, it would have ranked 17th in the world in patents in 2010.8 The outpouring of patents from Silicon Valley is a measure of its output of what is termed codified knowledge, meaning knowledge that can be written down. But much of the knowledge produced cannot be written down, or at least not exactly. This non-codifiable knowledge is termed tacit knowledge. The difference between codified and tacit knowledge can be illustrated this way. A recipe for a cake can be written down, as it is codified knowledge, but being able to read the recipe and follow it exactly does not get you a reputation for being an outstanding cook; on the other hand, the tacit knowledge of an exceptional chef is not something that you can easily write in a book. codified knowledgeKnowledge that can be written down in a form that would allow it to be understood by others and reproduced, such as the chemical formula for a drug. See also: tacit knowledge.tacit knowledgeKnowledge made up of the judgements, know-how, and other skills of those participating in the innovation process. The type of knowledge that cannot be accurately written down. See also: codified knowledge.The importance of tacit knowledge is demonstrated in the destruction and re-emergence of the German chemical industry. After the First World War and again after the Second World War, German chemical companies had their factories in Germany disassembled and their facilities in the US and UK expropriated. All that remained were key personnel. Had all of the necessary knowledge to build a modern chemical industry been codified, there is no particular reason why Germany should have resumed its leadership in this field. Any country with a large scientific and engineering labour force could have created the industry using the available codified knowledge, more or less like the cook following a recipe. But using their know-how and experience (the tacit knowledge), German companies nevertheless managed to resume dominant positions in some markets. Silicon Valley is as famous for its tacit knowledge as it is for its patented codified knowledge. The extraordinary concentration of innovative businesses in Silicon Valley reflects the importance of external effects and public goods in the production and application of new technologies. The two words ‘Silicon Valley’ no longer just refer to a place. They now represent a particular way that innovation gets done. Silicon Valley has become associated with an innovation system. As well as the legal institutions that protect codifiable knowledge and that govern how easily holders of tacit knowledge can move between firms, an innovation system includes financial institutions such as venture capital funds, banks, or technology-oriented firms that will finance projects that seek to commercialize innovations. Different countries provide quite different innovation systems that often co-evolve with industries in which they specialize. For example, radical innovation is more prevalent in the US, where labour can move easily between firms and venture capital is well developed, and incremental innovation is more prevalent in Germany, where ties of workers to firms are stronger and finance for innovation comes from retained profits and banks rather than from venture capital. non-compete contractA contract of employment containing a provision or agreement by which the worker cannot leave to work for a competitor. This may reduce the reservation option of the worker, lowering the wage that the employer needs to pay.Even within the US, Silicon Valley was unusual. During the 1960s, Silicon Valley was a minor player in technology compared to the Route 128 concentration near Boston, Massachusetts, which benefited from proximity to Harvard and MIT. But Route 128 differed from Silicon Valley in important ways, including the use of non-compete contracts that prohibited anyone leaving one firm from taking up employment with a competing firm, as a way of protecting information that a firm produced:
The Silicon Valley innovation systemWhy is innovation concentrated in Silicon Valley? Institutions and incentives reinforce each other to produce a radical innovation cluster. The Silicon Valley model is one of highly mobile entrepreneurs, investors, and employees linked within a small geographical area, with support from government and educational institutions.9 10 The Silicon Valley system consists of:
The German innovation systemInnovation in the US is concentrated in industries whose patents heavily cite scientific articles. This is one indicator of radical innovation. By contrast, the very successful export industries of Germany rely on incremental innovation, where patents are much less intensive in scientific citations and tacit knowledge tends to be more important. Networks are also crucial to the German innovation system but they work differently from those in Silicon Valley. Like Silicon Valley, innovation is concentrated geographically, with centres around Munich and Stuttgart in southwest Germany. The German system consists of:
Figure 21.5 compares the two systems. Both are successful, but in different ways. Silicon Valley-based firms dominate important digital technologies (ICT) associated with the latest general-purpose technology, while the German firms making up its distinctive innovation system have managed to sustain a much higher level of well-paid industrial jobs in the face of global competition, compared to the US or any other country outside of East Asia.
Figure 21.5 Two innovation systems: Silicon Valley and Germany. The economics of innovation systemsSuccessful innovation can contribute to rising living standards by expanding the set of products available to consumers, and by reducing the prices of existing products. However, many societies struggle to innovate. Economist Lisa Cook of Michigan State University asks why the transition to capitalism in Russia in the 1990s did not spark a wave of innovation. She documents the late 19th century inventions contributed by African American inventors, including gas masks, traffic lights, and light bulb technology and how this burst of innovations was cut short by a wave of attacks and anti-black mob violence. Her insights on the political and economic conditions under which innovation will flourish are relevant to understanding the vast differences across the world today in the extent of innovation. Compare the amount of innovation in capitalist economies to the amount in centrally planned economies of the Soviet Union and its allies during the twentieth century. In a list of 111 major non-military product and process innovations between 1917 and 1998, only one—synthetic rubber—came from Soviet bloc countries. Scholars have suggested that an important factor contributing to the collapse of the Soviet planned economies was the Communist Party’s failure to deliver innovation in consumer goods, which eroded the legitimacy of its rule.11 The successful capitalist innovation systems in Silicon Valley and Germany have two things in common:
In the next three sections, we explore three aspects of invention and diffusion that make the innovation process a challenge to public policy, and why it has proven so difficult for other localities to copy the Silicon Valley or German innovation systems. external effectA positive or negative effect of a production, consumption, or other economic decision on another person or people that is not specified as a benefit or liability in a contract. It is called an external effect because the effect in question is outside the contract. Also known as: externality. See also: incomplete contract, market failure, external benefit, external cost.public goodA good for which use by one person does not reduce its availability to others. Also known as: non-rival good. See also: non-excludable public good, artificially scarce good.economies of scaleThese occur when doubling all of the inputs to a production process more than doubles the output. The shape of a firm’s long-run average cost curve depends both on returns to scale in production and the effect of scale on the prices it pays for its inputs. Also known as: increasing returns to scale. See also: diseconomies of scale.These aspects are:
Recall from Unit 12 that these three characteristics are all sources of market failure. Simply letting market competition regulate the process of innovation will generally not result in an efficient outcome. These same three aspects of the innovation process also pose challenges to governments that seek to address these market failures. This is because governments may lack the necessary information (or the motivation) to develop appropriate policies. We begin with a model of the problem of external effects and the problem of coordination among innovators, simplified to just two firms considering investing in innovations, and a government that may assist in the innovation process.
Question 21.2 Choose the correct answer(s)Which of the following statements is correct regarding the Silicon Valley and German innovation systems?
21.3 External effects: Complements, substitutes, and coordinationcomplementsTwo goods for which an increase in the price of one leads to a decrease in the quantity demanded of the other. See also: substitutes.substitutesTwo goods for which an increase in the price of one leads to an increase in the quantity demanded of the other. See also: complements.Innovations considered by a firm will typically either increase or decrease other firms’ profit levels, and affect those firms’ choices about innovation. Think about just two firms, each considering innovations that are either:
In the absence of explicit government policies or private means of coordination among firms, the challenges posed by complementary innovations and substitute innovations are quite different:
We can use game theory to understand how two potential innovating firms interact strategically, and show why these contrasting problems arise and why they may be difficult to solve. (You may wish to review the introduction to game theory in Unit 4.) Innovations that are complementsHere we have two hypothetical firms, Plugcar, which is considering developing a novel electric car, and Netflex, which is weighing up the likely profits and costs of investing in a mobile network of battery exchanges. As above, the presence of Netflex makes Plugcar more valuable and vice versa, so they are complements. They will make their decisions (Innovate or Do not innovate) independently, but they know the profits and losses that will result in each of the four possible outcomes. They are given in the payoff matrix below. The row player is Plugcar, and its payoffs come first in each cell; the column player is Netflex, its payoffs are second in each cell. Positive numbers are profits for the company, while negative numbers are losses. Fullscreen Figure 21.6 The decision to innovate when products are complements.
Fullscreen Begin with the row player Begin with the row player and ask: ‘What would be the best response to the column player’s decision to innovate?’ Fullscreen The best response The best response would be Innovate, since the payoff is 1 rather than 0. Place a dot in the top left-hand cell. Fullscreen The row player’s response Then ask what the row player’s best response would be to the column player’s choice of Do not innovate: the answer is Do not innovate. Place a dot in the bottom right-hand cell. Fullscreen The column player’s reasoning Now turn to the column player. What would be the best response to the row player’s strategy of Innovate? The answer is Innovate. Place an open circle in the top left-hand cell—there will now be a dot inside a circle. Fullscreen The column player’s response Do the same for the column player’s response to row player’s strategy of Do not innovate. There is now a dot inside a circle. Fullscreen Finding the Nash equilibria Wherever there is a dot inside a circle in a cell, this is a Nash equilibrium because it shows that each player is playing the best response to what the other does. Imagine that you are Plugcar. If you do not innovate you will get zero, whatever Netflex does. If you knew that Netflex was not going to introduce its product, then you surely would not develop the Plugcar. What if Netflex does introduce its product? If you innovate you will get profits of 1. But you also stand to incur losses of 0.5 if Netflex does not innovate. Unless you are pretty sure that Netflex is going to innovate, you may decide that you have better uses for your funds. If Netflex reasoned the same way, then neither firm might innovate even though they both would have profited from doing so. Innovations that are substitutesWhen two innovations are substitutes we have the opposite problem. A good example is the video format war during the 1980s between two competing standards, VHS (for ‘video home system’ developed by Victor Company of Japan (JVC)) and Sony’s Betamax format. As discussed above, videos using one format could not be played on machines designed to play the other, so both companies had an interest in making their format the most widely accepted. We consider two hypothetical firms based on the Sony-JVC case. Here is the payoff matrix facing them. JVC is the row player, and Sony is the column player. As before, the first entry in each cell is the payoff of the row player. Fullscreen Figure 21.7 The decision to innovate when products are substitutes. Fullscreen Begin with the row player Begin with the row player and ask: ‘What would be the best response to the column player’s decision to innovate?’ Fullscreen The best response The best response would be Do not innovate, since the payoff is –0.5 rather than –1.0. Place a dot in the bottom left-hand cell. Fullscreen The row player’s response Then ask what the row player’s best response would be to the column player’s choice of Do not innovate: the answer is Innovate. Place a dot in the top right-hand cell. Fullscreen The column player’s reasoning Now turn to the column player. What would be the best response to the row player’s strategy of Innovate? The answer is Do not innovate. Place an open circle in the top right-hand cell—there will now be a dot inside a circle. Fullscreen The column player’s response Do the same for the column player’s response to row player’s strategy of Do not innovate. There is now a dot inside a circle. Fullscreen Finding the Nash equilibria Wherever there is a dot inside a circle in a cell, this is a Nash equilibrium because it shows that each player is playing the best response to what the other does. If Sony is sure that JVC will innovate, then it will face a costly battle with big losses if JVC wins. The payoffs in the upper left-hand cell are negative for both firms, because the costs of developing the new product and competing for market share do not offset the uncertain prospect of profits should they win. Of course, if Sony knew that JVC was not going to invest, or if it was sure it would win a not-very-costly battle with its product should both invest, then Sony would definitely invest and enjoy the winner-take-all profits, while inflicting losses on JVC. The result is that there is sometimes too little innovation for the good of society when ideas are complementary, and too much when the innovations are substitutes. The role of public policyComplementsIf the payoffs in the matrix were known to everyone, then a wise government would know that the top left (Innovate, Innovate) in Figure 21.6 is the best outcome for society. It could, in the case of complementary innovations, provide both firms with sufficient subsidies so that both would find it profitable to make the investment regardless of what the other firm did. Or, more reasonably, it could help the two firms to cooperate in the innovation process, promising not to prosecute them for any anti-competitive practices if coordinated decision making is prohibited by antitrust or other law. But using public policy to avoid an unfavourable outcome is a greater challenge than our simple model would suggest. There are likely to be more than two potential innovators, and hence many proposed designs for electric cars and for recharging systems. The government would have to choose the cooperating firms, and the terms under which the cooperation would occur. In this case, companies have incentives to spend resources to influence government decisions (lobbying). As we shall see in Unit 22, there are many reasons why governments may fail to achieve the socially beneficial outcome in cases like this. Private exchanges might have a role to play here. If the firms themselves have better information than the government, they might engage in private agreements. This is the equivalent to the bargaining among private economic bodies that occurred in Unit 12 as an alternative to government regulation of the use of chemical weedkillers. Finally, firms with promising complementary innovations might agree to merge so that, as a single company, the problem of coordinating their innovation decisions would be internal to the firm. Substitutes and standardsThe substitutes in Figure 21.7 present similar challenges for government policy. There may be a great many competing substitute innovations. Sony’s Betamax and JVC’s VHS were not the only entrants in the early stages of the formatting wars. Governments may also lack the relevant information, or may be under the influence of one of the contestants. As we will see later, sometimes one competitor’s technology wins over the other. Eventually, Betamax, for example, died out and VHS became the universal home videotape standard. Sometimes, companies in an industry apply the same standards, because consistency increases the size of the market and benefits all firms. An example is the way the shipping industry implemented the standard for the size of containers they carry, which allowed trucks and ports to become more efficient, and therefore achieve economies of scale. Often, however, public sector agencies play an important role in encouraging agreement among all the firms in an industry about technical standards. These are usually international bodies, like the International Telecommunications Union or the European Commission. The EU, for example, helped mobile phone companies to agree on the GSM standard for phone handsets and networks, which enabled all the manufacturers and operators to benefit from a rapidly growing European mobile market, and enabled consumers to benefit from the ease of calling other networks and declining prices.
Question 21.3 Choose the correct answer(s)The following matrix shows the payoffs for two firms according to whether they innovate or not. The first number is the payoff for firm A while the second number is for firm B. Fullscreen Based on this information, which of the following statements is correct?
21.4 Economies of scale and winner-take-all competitionInnovation involves developing new knowledge, and putting it to use. Recall that knowledge is unusual in two ways. It is a public good (what one consumes does not subtract from what is available to others) and its production and use are characterized by extraordinary increasing returns to scale. We discussed knowledge as a public good in Unit 12. In this section, we discuss the two ways in which knowledge-intensive innovation creates economies of scale. The supply side: First copy costs and economies of scale in productionfirst copy costsThe fixed costs of the production of a knowledge-intensive good or service.The first copy of new knowledge is costly to produce, but virtually costless to make available to others. Because first copy costs are large relative to the costs (variable or marginal) of making additional goods available, information production and distribution is different from any other part of the economy.
In Unit 7 we studied how a firm sets prices, and how it decides how much to produce. In Figure 21.8, we show a set of cost curves for a firm producing a knowledge-intensive good. The numbers are hypothetical, and they understate the true size of the first copy cost relative to marginal cost. Even so, the vertical axis is still not drawn to scale so we can read the figure.
A firm producing a knowledge-intensive good that wants to make economic profits will have to cover its first copy cost. To do so, the price will have to be at least as high as the average cost curve and therefore higher than marginal cost. This means the production of knowledge-intensive goods cannot be described by the competitive markets of Unit 8 in which price equals marginal cost (P = MC), but instead by the model of price-setting firms in Unit 7. In Unit 7, we assumed that P > MC because of limited competition. Here it is an unavoidable consequence of first copy costs, and no matter how many competitors there are, price cannot be competed all the way down to marginal cost. Fullscreen Figure 21.8 A knowledge-intensive good: Marginal, average, and first copy costs. Earlier in this unit (and in Units 1 and 2), we explain that in the absence of intellectual property rights, competition from followers would eventually eliminate the innovation rents made by first adopters of an improved technology or new product. This is how the diffusion of a new technology happens, and results in lower prices. The same process will take place where first copy costs are important. Other firms will copy the innovator until the economic profits (rents) are eliminated, so that the price being charged offsets the average cost of production, including the first copy cost and the opportunity cost of the capital goods used. But in this situation, the price being charged must be greater than the average cost (due to the first copy costs, as shown in Figure 21.8). Figure 21.9 below illustrates these cases.
Figure 21.9 The average cost curve, economic profits, and competition. The demand side: Economies of scale through network effectsnetwork external effectsAn external effect of one person’s action on another, occuring because the two are connected in a network. See also: external effect.The value of many forms of knowledge increases when more people use it. Because the benefits to users increase as the network of users grows, demand-side increasing returns are sometimes called network external effects. The external effect is that when one more person joins the network, all others benefit. Languages are a good example. Today, more than one billion people are learning English, which is more than three times as many people who speak English as their first language. The demand for English is not due to the intrinsic superiority of the language or because it is easy to learn (as many of you will know), but simply because so many other people, in many parts of the world, speak it. There are many more people who speak Mandarin (Chinese) and Spanish as a first language, and almost as many Hindi and Arabic speakers, but none of these languages is as useful to communicate globally as is English. Having a particular games console is better when lots of people have the same one, because developers will produce more games for it. A credit card is more useful when many people have the same card, because lots of shops will accept it as payment. But have you ever wondered who bought the first telephone, and what they intended to do with it? Or what you could do with the first fax machine? The technology behind the fax, a device to send images of documents over a telephone line, was first patented by Alexander Bain in 1843—although his image-sending innovation had to use the telegraph, because nobody had invented a telephone yet. A commercial service that could transmit handwritten signatures using the telegraph was available in the 1860s. But the fax remained a niche product until 120 years later when it became so popular that, within the space of 10 years, almost every office installed its own fax machine. This tells us the first thing we need to know about demand-side economies of scale: there is little incentive to be the first to adopt a technology with this characteristic. The second thing we need to know is that, if two versions of this type of technology are competing, the one that gains a larger number of adopters at the outset will have an advantage, even if the other one is cheaper or better. To see this, let’s take another look at the video format war between Sony and JVC. Sony’s Betamax format was superior to JVC’s VHS for its picture and sound quality. But in the early 1980s, Sony made a strategic error by limiting the recording time to 60 minutes. If customers wanted to use their new Sony Betamax to record a feature film, they needed to change the tape in the middle of the recording. By the time Sony had extended its recording length to 120 minutes, there were so many more VHS users that the Betamax format all but disappeared. winner-take-all competitionFirms entering a market first can often dominate the entire market, at least temporarily.The video formatting war, and its outcome, is an example of winner-take-all competition, in which economies of scale in production or distribution give the firm with the largest share of the market a commanding competitive edge. Winner-take-all competition does not necessarily select the best. To see how this works, Figure 21.10 depicts competition based on the Sony and JVC case. The length of the horizontal axis is the number of people purchasing either Sony’s Betamax or JVC’s VHS. We assume that the price of the two products is identical. To simplify our example, assume that the value of using the product for a new user is approximately the number of individuals currently using the product, n, multiplied by an index for the quality of the product, q. The net benefit of purchasing a good is then equal to the benefit from using the good, qn, minus the price that the consumer pays, p. Our simplifying assumptions then allow us to write the net value of buying the product as Π = qn − p. Higher quality products have a higher value of q, so consumers faced with two products with the same number of users and same price will prefer the higher quality good. The number of individuals buying Betamax is measured from the left to the right, starting at zero and extending potentially all the way to the entire market. The blue line shows the net benefits of using Betamax for consumers. Its equation is ΠB = qBnB − p, where the superscript ‘B’ is for Betamax. If everyone buys Betamax, the value to each purchaser is shown in the figure, ΠBmax, which is equal to qBntotal − p. If no one else buys Betamax, the value to that first purchaser is negative and equal to the price paid, shown by the intercept on the left-hand vertical axis below the horizontal axis. In the same figure, the net value of JVC’s product VHS is given by the red line whose equation is ΠV = qVnV − p (where the superscript ‘V’ stands for VHS). Because there are only two firms competing, the number buying VHS is just the total size of the market, minus the number buying Betamax. Let’s assume that the Betamax format is higher quality. Within our model, this means that qB > qV. This implies that if everyone bought Betamax, the net value would be greater than if everyone bought VHS format, that is ΠBmax > ΠVmax. In Figure 21.10, this is illustrated by the fact that the height of the blue Betamax line where it intersects the right-hand axis (everyone using Betamax) is above the intercept of the red VHS line with the left-hand axis (everyone using VHS). Fullscreen Figure 21.10 The net value of becoming part of a network. Fullscreen The net benefit of Betamax The net benefit to a consumer of Betamax is given by the blue line, reading from left to right. Fullscreen If everyone buys Betamax The net benefit to each purchaser is shown in the figure by ΠBmax, which is equal to qBntotal − p. This is the case where Betamax is the winning format and takes all of the market, shown by point A. Fullscreen If nobody buys Betamax The net benefit to a purchaser would be negative and equal to the price paid for it. Fullscreen The net benefit of VHS The red line gives the net benefit to a consumer of the VHS format. The VHS format is the winner and takes all the market at point B. Fullscreen For Betamax to break a VHS monopoly For the net benefit of Betamax to be greater than the net benefit of VHS, it would require at least 4,000 buyers to purchase a Betamax recorder, shown in the diagram as all the outcomes to the right of point C. The first thing to notice is that if at a particular moment everyone is buying VHS (point B), then a new buyer will certainly prefer VHS to Betamax. To see this in the diagram, look at the left-hand side and consider a new buyer. For this person, the value of VHS is high (the intercept with the left-hand axis), whereas the value of Betamax is negative. This is because the new user would have to pay the price of the Betamax recorder, but would not get any benefits because there are no other users, and therefore no video content is provided. This is true even though we have assumed that Betamax costs the same as VHS, and that Betamax is the better quality video cassette. lock-inA consequence of the network external effects that create winner-take-all competition. The competitive process results in an outcome that is difficult to change, even if users of the technology consider an alternative innovation superior.The second lesson from the figure is that even if many consumers (but fewer than 4,000) were buying Betamax, the new consumer would still prefer VHS (the red line is still above the blue line at that point). For Betamax to break the VHS monopoly, it would have to get at least 4,000 buyers. Then Betamax rather than VHS would offer higher value, and could eventually take the entire market (at point A). So the winner need not be the better alternative. This is sometimes called lock-in. But this is not the whole story. The history of innovation in the knowledge economy is full of more complicated stories, in which changes are constantly occurring for many reasons. For example:
Question 21.4 Choose the correct answer(s)Figure 21.8 shows the cost curves for a firm producing a knowledge-intensive good. The marginal cost is constant at $1 for all output Q. Based on this information, which of the following statements is correct?
21.5 Matching (two-sided) marketsA market is a way of putting together people who might benefit from exchanging a good or service. Often these are potential buyers and sellers of the same commodity, such as milk, and the sides of this market are farmers supplying milk and consumers demanding it. In common usage, a market may also refer to a place such as the Fulton Fish Market that we described in Unit 8, or a place where those selling fresh vegetables, cheese, and baked goods congregate, knowing that they will encounter potential customers. In these markets, buyers do not care about who produced the fish or the milk that they buy, and sellers are similarly not concerned about who is buying, as long as someone buys their products. Matching (two-sided) marketsPeople also use the term market to describe a different kind of connection, in which the people on each side of the market care whom they are matched with on the other side. This is what people have in mind when they speak about the ‘marriage market’, for example. Most of us do not get married in the way that we get a carton of milk in the grocery market. The marriage market is about getting married to a person with the combination of characteristics that you find most desirable in a spouse. Markets like these are called matching markets or two-sided markets. matching marketA market that matches members of two distinct groups of people. Each person in the market would benefit from being connected to the right member of the other group. Also known as: two-sided market.In our ‘Economist in action’ video, Alvin Roth, an economist who specializes in how markets are designed (and who won the Nobel Prize for his work on the subject in 2012), explains how matching markets function.12 13 We have recently seen a proliferation of online platforms that connect individuals in two groups, starting with the launch of consumer-to-consumer trader eBay in 1995. These platforms make up a general-purpose technology that allows the participants to benefit from being networked together, and so are examples of two-sided markets. Another example is Airbnb, a service that connects travellers looking for short-term apartment rentals with owners seeking to make money by making their home available while they are not living in it. Airbnb is a platform that puts the group of apartment seekers in touch with the group of apartment owners who would like to offer their apartments for rent. Tinder does the same thing for people who want to find a date for the evening. A service called JOE Network puts employers in contact with people who have recently been awarded PhDs in economics. The CORE Project is itself a matching market, as it provides a digital platform for researchers, teachers and students in economics to connect in ways that are mutually beneficial, although it is not really a market as the services of the researchers of providing the content in the ebook and the ebook itself are provided without pay. These matching platforms have become an important topic in economics because of the magnitude of the network connections that are now possible. But while connections on this scale are now technically feasible, there is no mechanism that will reliably bring two-sided markets into existence even if they create gains for the participants on both sides. At an early stage, these markets—meaning the creation of the platform, or the marketplace, or whatever it is that connects people—face a chicken-and-egg problem. Think about Airbnb: it makes money by charging a commission on each deal that is struck. Unless there are a large number of apartment seekers consulting its website, there is no reason for an apartment owner seeking a rental to offer an apartment for rent. Without apartments to rent, Airbnb will not be able to make money, so there would be no incentive to create the platform in the first place. A model of a two-sided matching marketstrategic complementsFor two activities A and B: the more that A is performed, the greater the benefits of performing B, and the more that B is performed the greater the benefits of performing A.In economics, these two activities—seeking an apartment by going to Airbnb’s web page, and posting one’s apartment on it—are termed strategic complements. This term means that the more of the first (seeking) that occurs, the more benefit there is to someone who does the second (posting); also, the more posting there is, then the more benefit there is to seeking. This is closely related to the network externalities typical of a new innovation that we discussed in the previous section, where the benefit to using Betamax increased with the number of individuals using that video format. However, in this case, the external benefit depends on how many members of the opposite group are on the platform, rather than just how many people are using the platform in total. Figure 21.11a illustrates the chicken-and-egg problem. We begin with the number of apartments posted on Airbnb. People post their apartment because they believe that many apartment seekers will see the posting and eventually rent the apartment. If there are few people logging onto the Airbnb site (seeking), then few apartment owners will think it’s worth their effort to post their apartment on the site. The ‘posters’ curve shows hypothetically how many apartments would be posted in response to each possible number of apartment seekers who consult the site. As illustrated in the figure, unless more than 500 apartment seekers are going to the site, no apartment owner will post their home for rent. To see this, look at where the curve labelled ‘posters’ intercepts the horizontal axis. As the number of apartment seekers (those ‘demanding’ apartments) viewing the site rises beyond 500, an increasing number of owners will post their information. But there is a limit to how many people will want to rent out their home temporarily, so the ‘posters’ curve flattens out as we move to the right. The situation is similar for those seeking to rent an apartment. The number of people checking the Airbnb site depends on how many apartments are posted there. As long as more than a minimum number of apartments are posted on the site (from the figure, more than 200), then some people will look for an apartment there. This is the intercept of the ‘seeker’s’ curve with the vertical axis. The ‘seekers’ curve shows that the more apartments are posted, the more people will look. Fullscreen Figure 21.11a A two-sided matching market: The case of Airbnb. Fullscreen The number of apartment seekers checking the Airbnb site This depends on the number of those posting an apartment. Fullscreen The number of apartments posted by owners This depends on the number of apartment seekers checking the Airbnb site. Fullscreen Point Z At Z, the two curves intersect. This point is a Nash equilibrium. Fullscreen If no apartment seekers are consulting the site No owners will post their apartment. Nobody doing anything is therefore another Nash equilibrium, as shown by O. Fullscreen Point A At A, the curves also intersect, but the point is not a stable equilibrium. To see how the Airbnb market works, think about point Z in the figure. Z is a mutually consistent outcome in that:
This means that the behaviours of the posters and the seekers is mutually consistent at point Z, and so point Z is a Nash equilibrium. If the market is at point Z, with 700 apartments posted and 1,800 apartment seekers, neither the apartment posters or seekers will want to change their behaviour. But notice that there are two other points that also have this mutual consistency property:
To see what happens in the latter case, suppose that the number of apartment seekers unexpectedly dropped from 600 to 450. The best response for the 250 apartment owners who had previously posted their homes would then be to completely pull out of the market. If all the apartment posters drop out of the market, the remaining 450 seekers will also eventually drop out. So, if we enter the blue zone, a ‘vicious cycle’ of both posters and seekers abandoning the market will ensue and the result will be no market at all, which is depicted on the diagram as point O. unstable equilibriumAn equilibrium such that, if a shock disturbs the equilibrium, there is a subsequent tendency to move even further away from the equilibrium. tipping pointAn unstable equilibrium at the boundary between two regions characterized by distinct movements in some variable. If the variable takes a value on one side, the variable moves in one direction; on the other, it moves in the other direction. See also: asset price bubble.This process of adjustment away from an equilibrium is similar to the example you studied in Unit 11, about house prices and the value of durable assets. Because a small move away from point A leads to a cumulative process leading further away from A, we say that point A is unstable. A situation like point A is sometimes described as a tipping point. Given the chicken-and-egg problem, how could Airbnb ever come into existence? Point Z is a Nash equilibrium, but how could the market ever get there? If a sufficient number of seekers (greater than 600) somehow showed up on the site then more than 250 owners would post their apartments on the site. Or if by chance 300 owners posted their apartments, then more than 600 seekers would be motivated to check out the Airbnb site. Figure 21.11b shows that in these cases, a virtuous cycle of both seekers and posters entering the market will take place and the number of both will grow until there are 700 posters and 1,800 seekers. Fullscreen Figure 21.11b A two-sided matching market: The case of Airbnb. Fullscreen Many people seeking apartments Consider the case where there are 876 seekers but only 300 posters, at point B. Fullscreen New posters join the market This encourages new posters to list their site (point C) … Fullscreen New seekers respond This in turn attracts new apartment seekers. Fullscreen A stable equilibrium The upward spiral leads to point Z, which is a stable Nash equilibrium. Fullscreen A better outcome Comparing the three equilibria, point Z is the preferred one, better than no market, and better than the unstable equilibrium at point A. The figure explains why we might end up either with no market at all, or with a functioning market that matches some of the 1,800 seekers with the 700 posters. To see that the second is preferable to the first, think about a particular transaction: all of those posting and seeking are doing so voluntarily, so they must all see a personal benefit in doing it. When one of the seekers is paired with a poster, both seeker and renter benefit (otherwise they would not agree). This is true for every market participant. So, having the market must be better than not having it. The figure also shows that the market can come into existence and persist if we somehow started out with more than 600 seekers and or 250 posters. But that is a big if. Market failures in matching marketsThe economic policy challenge is to find a way to ensure that someone will create the platforms that produce benefits for participants that are sufficient to justify the cost. This is sometimes done by the public sector playing a role in creating the platform, as it did in the case of the Internet, or physical marketplaces in cities and towns. But in many cases (such as Airbnb, Tinder, and many other private platforms), the existence of a two-sided market is the haphazard result of a forward-looking individual having both the idea and the resources to launch a large, risky project. For example, to solve the chicken-and-egg startup problem in the Airbnb market, the originator of the platform could have paid the first 250 posters to post their apartments, giving them an incentive to post on the website even when nobody was consulting the site. That could have kicked off the virtuous cycle of additional seekers and posters joining the market. A common strategy for solving the chicken-and-egg problem is for companies to charge low or zero prices to one group of users, which then attracts the other group. For example, Adobe lets you download its PDF reader for no cost. If many people read documents as PDFs, it incentivizes document creators to pay for Adobe Acrobat, the software used to create PDF files. While some two-sided markets, such as Wikipedia, are not designed to be money-makers, most are. And some of those who succeeded in creating widely used platforms have gained extraordinary wealth. In 2017, Facebook was valued at $245 billion and Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the company, owned 28.4% of it. These innovation rents, unlike those associated with a new technical innovation like the spinning jenny studied in Unit 2, may not be competed away because would-be competitors face the very same chicken-and-egg problem that the successful innovators solved. The problem is similar to the example of the strategic interaction between Plugcar and Netflex discussed earlier in this unit. There are probably many potentially mutually beneficial two-sided markets that do not exist (or do not exist yet) because of this chicken-and-egg problem. For instance, there has been little new competition in the credit card industry. It would be difficult to persuade merchants to accept a new type of card if not many shoppers carried it, and it would be difficult to encourage shoppers to carry a card that not many merchants would accept. A catalogue of policiesThe last three sections have introduced three reasons why market competition for profits cannot create an efficient innovation process by itself: external (network) effects, public goods and economies of scale. Public policies can encourage useful innovations and accelerate their diffusion to all users who may benefit. We have already mentioned the possible coordinating role of government-set standards. In the next three sections we study two other types of policies:
Question 21.5 Choose the correct answer(s)Figure 21.11a shows a hypothetical market for Airbnb, a service that connects travellers looking for short-term apartment rentals with owners looking to rent out their home while they are away. Based on this information, which of the following statements is correct?
21.6 Intellectual property rightsPatent protection may be unnecessary for an innovator if secrecy is possible, or social norms prevent copying. The formula for Coca-Cola has famously remained a secret for 100 years. The company claims it is known by only two executives at any time, who never travel on the same aeroplane. A chef’s signature dish is not a secret, but social norms among chefs would make the costs of copying a recipe without permission extraordinarily high. Comedians rarely steal each other’s jokes for the same reason. In other cases, an innovation may be known, but barriers to copying can be built into the product itself. Digital watermarking technology allowed some music distributors (briefly) to make recorded music that could not be copied. Seed companies successfully accomplished the same thing by introducing hybrid corn and other varieties that do not reproduce well. Firms can also rely on superior capabilities that are complementary to a technological product to protect their innovation rents. Such capabilities could be a superior sales force, the ability to bring products to market more quickly, or exclusive contracts with input suppliers. Secrecy, barriers to copying, or complementary capabilities may not be effective against rivals who manage to invent the same product independently, or who reverse-engineer it by starting with the finished product and working out how it was made. patentA right of exclusive ownership of an idea or invention, which lasts for a specified length of time. During this time it effectively allows the owner to be a monopolist or exclusive user.trademarkA logo, a name, or a registered design typically associated with the right to exclude others from using it to identify their products.copyrightOwnership rights over the use and distribution of an original work.Where a novel idea is both codifiable (it can be written down) and non-excludable (imitation cannot be prevented), governments have created laws protecting intellectual property rights. There are many kinds of intellectual property, but the most commonly used are patents, trademarks, and copyright. What they have in common is that they give the holder of the right exclusive use of the thing covered by the right for some designated period of time. In economic terms, the holder of the intellectual property right is made a temporary monopolist. Intellectual property rightsCodifiable and non-excludable ideas can be protected by the following forms of intellectual property rights in the following ways: PatentsPatents require the innovator to disclose their idea in a patent application, which is examined by a patent office and subsequently published. If the examiners are convinced the idea is sufficiently new and inventive, they will grant the innovator a patent. In most cases, a patent gives the innovator the right to take any imitator to court for 20 years: this can be extended to 25 years in the case of pharmaceutical patents. Some countries vary the length of patent protection. TrademarksA trademark gives the owner of a logo, a name, or a registered design the right to exclude others from using it to identify their products. Trademarks can be extended indefinitely. Patents and trademarks are generally registered at a dedicated office. CopyrightCopyright gives the author of an intellectual work such as a book, an opera, or software code the right to exclude others from reproducing, adapting, and selling it. Copyright is generally not registered. The author must make a claim if he or she believes it has been violated. Copyright terms are far longer than those for patents, and have been progressively extended. Copyright applies for a minimum of 25 years and in the US currently for 70 years after the death of the creator. Long copyright terms are controversial, because often the benefits go to people who did not create the work. How intellectual property rights affect innovationUntil recently, it had been thought that patents encourage the development and use of innovations. Now economists and historians are taking a second look at whether intellectual property rights promote or actually destroy innovation. The answer depends on which of two opposite effects is more important:
An important historical case is the steam engine, which was so important to the Industrial Revolution. There were several types of steam engine invented during the eighteenth century, but the most successful type was patented in 1769 by James Watt. He was an engineer, and did nothing to commercialize his innovation. In fact, he did not begin production in earnest until six years after he invented it. The commercial value of the patent was an afterthought for Watt. The businessman Matthew Boulton bought a share in the patent, and persuaded Watt to move to Birmingham (one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution) to develop the new engine he had invented. Boulton also campaigned successfully to extend the period of the patent from 14 to 31 years.
Afterwards, Watt and Boulton used the courts vigorously to prevent any other steam engines from being sold, even if they were different to Watt’s design. Among these was Jonathan Hornblower’s rival invention, which was more efficient than the Watt design. Watt and Boulton challenged Hornblower’s patent, eventually winning the case in 1799. Another superior invention, created by an employee, was blocked when Watt and Boulton succeeded in broadening their patent to cover the new design, even though they had not had any part in its development. Ironically, Watt knew how to make his machine more efficient, but he couldn’t make the improvement. Someone else held the patent. Under the Watt-Boulton patent, the UK added about 750 horsepower of steam engines per year. In the 30 years after it expired, more than 4,000 horsepower a year of steam engines were installed in England. Fuel efficiency, which had barely improved while the patent was in force, increased by a factor of five between 1810 and 1835. There is no doubt that patent protection is essential to the process of new knowledge creation in some industries. When the patent on a pharmaceutical blockbuster drug (a drug with annual sales of more than $1 billion in the US) expires, firms specializing in copying drug formulations and selling generic versions of the drug can enter the market, and the drug’s price decreases as it is exposed to price competition. The patent owner’s profits decrease significantly. Rapid falls in profits demonstrate that the monopolies created by patents can be immensely valuable for the patent owner, but costly for users of the patented innovation. When the DVD was introduced, it became apparent that the technology would allow consumers to not just own, but also to copy music and films from these disks in high quality. This posed a significant dilemma for the music and film industries that was addressed through new laws making it illegal to subvert digital rights management (DRM) technology, which the film companies used to stop people copying the content without permission. These same laws are now often used when users share content that is copyright protected over the Internet. Today DRM technology helps to protect the companies we now call content providers, who use the Internet as a distribution device—think of a television company that streams sports events live to computers and phones. Figure 21.12 is a schematic representation of the innovation process. Arrows represent inputs, pointing towards the aspect of innovation that they affect. The figure highlights how the creation of new knowledge always builds on existing knowledge. For instance, Hornblower built on the existing Watt-Boulton design to improve efficiency. As was the case in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, existing patents restrict the ability to build on existing knowledge, and can therefore have a negative effect on innovation. On the other hand, by securing innovation rents for creators, they encourage innovation. Fullscreen Figure 21.12 Patents and the production of new knowledge. Fullscreen Old knowledge helps make new knowledge Patents slow down this process. As Watt and Boulton found out, patents can impede the use of some aspects of old knowledge that are covered by patents. Fullscreen Patents encourage innovation The creation of new knowledge gives successful inventors recognition and innovation rents. Watt did not invent the steam engine to profit from the patent he would receive, but other innovators are strongly motivated by the prospect of commercializing their inventions. Fullscreen Patents slow diffusion Patents prevent other innovators from realizing the full benefits of new knowledge after it has been created. Watt and Boulton managed to use patents to stop rival inventors from creating their own, perhaps better, steam engines. When Petra Moser, an economic historian, studied the number and quality of technical inventions shown at mid-nineteenth century technology expositions, she found that countries with patent systems were no more inventive than countries without patents. Patents did, however, affect the kinds of inventive activities in which countries excelled.
Question 21.6 Choose the correct answer(s)Which of the following statements is correct regarding laws protecting intellectual property rights?
21.7 Optimal patents: Balancing the objectives of invention and diffusionPatents confront us with an economic problem: how best to balance the competing objectives of making good use of existing knowledge, devoting sufficient economic resources and creativity to producing new knowledge, and diffusing the new knowledge that is created. An ‘optimal patent’ is one that best advances the use of knowledge in the economy. Currently, agreements administered by the World Trade Organization, which regulates international trade, may prevent countries from choosing patent length, but given complete freedom of choice, how could a policymaker decide the optimal patent length? In Figure 21.13, we look first at the decision of an innovator in the upper panel. Work through the analysis in Figure 21.13 to understand the timing of costs and benefits of innovation and who receives them.
Fullscreen Figure 21.13 Costs and rents associated with innovation for the inventor and others. Fullscreen The innovator incurs costs The costs of innovation are shown by the red rectangle. Fullscreen The innovation is successful The firm makes innovation rents above economic profits. This is the rectangle above the dotted zero economic profits line. Fullscreen A patent The firm benefits from innovation rents for the life of the patent. Fullscreen The benefits to others in the economy The lower panel shows the benefits that arise from the innovation. If the innovation did not exist, there would be no benefits to others. Fullscreen A patent The patent reduces benefits to others, because it delays copying and diffusion. In the lower panel of Figure 21.13, we include the benefits to others in the economy that arise from the innovation. The term ‘patent cliff’ is from the point of view of the innovator, and refers to the significant decrease in profits when the patent expires. But in the lower panel we see the opposite effect—the benefits of the innovation shoot up when the patent expires, because the innovation is now free to diffuse throughout the economy. This demonstrates the trade-off. Without the innovation, there are no benefits to others and the likelihood of the innovation increases with longer patents. However, for any given innovation, the benefits are reduced by the duration of the patent. Earlier imitation of the innovation brings benefits to the economy, shown by the dashed rectangle in the lower panel. From this, we can see that a long patent emphasizes the benefits of rapid innovation, and a short patent emphasizes the benefits of rapid imitation. But we can’t decide by looking at Figure 21.13 how long the optimal patent should be. The trade-off between the benefits of diffusion and of inventionisototal benefits curveThe combinations of the probability of innovation and the total benefits to society from a firm’s innovation that yield the same total benefits.Figure 21.14 shows how we can represent the benefits of innovation to society as a whole. On the horizontal axis are shown the total benefits to others in the economy if the firm innovates. This is called B. On the vertical axis we estimate the probability of innovation, called pI. The downward-sloping curves are indifference curves called isototal benefits curves. The total benefits to others from innovation are: Fullscreen Figure 21.14 Isototal benefits curves: The trade-off between the benefits of invention and diffusion. Fullscreen The isototal benefits curve The downward-sloping curve is an indifference curve, called an isototal benefits curve. Along the curve the total benefits arising from an innovation are equal to pIB and remain constant. Fullscreen Rectangles that touch the curve Any rectangle with a corner on the curve has the same area as any other. Points C and D illustrate this. Fullscreen A preferable curve The higher isototal benefits curve is preferable to the curve through C and D. Feasible invention and diffusionWhat are the constraints? What limits the total benefits that will occur if the innovation takes place? This will depend on the length of the patent, because a longer period of patent protection is thought at least initially to increase the probability of innovation, pI, but to reduce the amount of total benefits for others, B, if the innovation occurs because of the delay in copying. Even when there is no patent, innovation can occur, as shown on the vertical axis of Figure 21.15. In these cases the innovator could capture innovation rents just by being the first in the market, because it takes competitors some time to catch up. Figure 21.15 shows that as the duration of patents increases (moving to the right along the horizontal axis), so does the probability of innovation because innovation rents are protected for a longer period of time. Beyond a particular length of patent protection, however, the probability of innovation begins to decline because long-term patents will prevent other potential innovators from using protected knowledge or processes to develop an idea. Fullscreen Figure 21.15 Patent duration and probability of innovation. We can show the feasible set in Figure 21.16, which presents the trade-off between a higher probability of innovation and the total benefits to others if the firm innovates. Fullscreen Figure 21.16 The feasible set: Innovation probability and benefits to others. Each point on the feasible set is the result of a given patent length, starting at the left-hand side with a patent that never expires. As we move to the right, the duration of a patent declines. There are increasing benefits to others. Initially this increases both the benefits to others should the innovation occur, and (as we saw in Figure 21.15) the probability of innovation. This gives the positively sloped section of the feasible set. However, as we have also seen, at some point there will be a trade-off: a further reduction in patent duration will decrease the probability of innovation, even though it expands the total benefits that would result should the innovation occur. This explains the downward-sloping portion of the frontier of the feasible set. Optimal patent durationIf we now put the feasible set together with the isototal benefits curves, we can determine the length of the patent that maximizes the expected benefits consistent with the constraints imposed by the trade-off between the incentive for innovation and stimulating diffusion. The highest attainable level of total benefits is shown by the tangency of the isototal benefits curve with the feasible set. This is point A in Figure 21.17. Fullscreen Figure 21.17 The optimal probability of innovation for society. Fullscreen Maximizing expected benefits to society Combining the feasible set with the isototal benefits curves, we can determine the length of the patent that maximizes the expected benefits to society as a whole. Fullscreen The highest attainable level of total benefits This is shown by the tangency of the isototal benefits curve with the feasible set at point A. Fullscreen The optimal probability of innovation From the perspective of society as a whole, the optimal probability of innovation is p*. Fullscreen Higher probability of innovation but lower benefits to society At E, with a longer patent than the optimal one at A, innovation is more likely but because of less diffusion, its benefits to society as a whole are lower as shown by the lower isototal benefits curve. This outcome on its own is not a policy, but it allows us to determine one. We can now go back to Figure 21.15 and ask what patent duration would a policymaker set so that the innovating firm will choose society’s optimal probability of innovation, p*? Figure 21.18 shows the answer. Fullscreen Figure 21.18 The optimal patent duration. Fullscreen The optimal probability of innovation Given the benefits of innovation to others, we established in Figure 21.17 that p* is the optimal probability of innovation. This can tell us what the duration of the patents should be. Fullscreen The optimal duration of patents If we know p*, we can use Figure 21.15 (the right-hand figure here) to determine the optimal duration of patents, d*. Fullscreen What if there were no patents? We can see that innovation will still occur, but below the optimal level for society.
Question 21.7 Choose the correct answer(s)Figure 21.13 depicts the costs and rents associated with innovation for the inventor and others. Based on this diagram, which of the following statements is correct?
Question 21.8 Choose the correct answer(s)The following diagram depicts the probability of innovation as the duration of patents is increased. Fullscreen Based on this information, which of the following statements is correct?
21.8 Public funding of basic research, education, and information infrastructureThe pros and cons of various kinds of intellectual property rights are just a part of the problem of designing an effective innovation system. Another important element is the role of the government. Recall, for example, from the introduction of this unit, that in some cases the expected beneficial effects on markets from the spread of mobile phones did not materialize because necessary public infrastructure—mostly roads and means of transport—were lacking. Governmental provision of goods and services, such as the roads that would have allowed Indian farmers to benefit from their new access to price information, are essential to successful diffusion of the benefits of innovation. As we shall see, the origins of the computer, and by extension, the entire information revolution makes the essential role of government clear in the innovation process itself. Adequate public policies concerning innovation can help in two main ways:
Government-funded researchThe roots of the IT revolution can be traced to the building of the first electronic programmable computers after the Second World War, although as with any technology, some elements are older. Charles Babbage first proposed a calculating machine called the Difference Engine, in a learned paper published in 1822 (and was funded by the British government to develop it), and his ideas helped Ada Lovelace develop the first computer program. The British and American governments’ efforts during and after the Second World War pioneered programmable electronic computing in practice. In the US, the early focus was on supporting the development of missile systems and the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. These projects demanded huge numbers of rapid calculations in ballistics and predicting atomic reactions. US government money supported private entities such as Bell Labs in New Jersey, as well as federal research facilities like Los Alamos. There was a close partnership between the private sector, government agencies and universities, resulting in the building of the ENIAC machine in 1946 under the auspices of the US Army. It was the first electronic computer, although it could not store programs. Other innovations followed swiftly, such as the development of the transistor by William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1948, as well as the creation of new companies such as Fairchild Semiconductor. American government support for the industry has continued through research funding, including, famously, the creation of the Internet (in 1969) in a project financed by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. In the UK, early progress in computing was focused on the efforts at Bletchley Park, where the mathematician Alan Turing worked, to crack Germany’s Enigma code. The Colossus machine developed there remained a secret until the 1970s, but Bletchley Park scientists and engineers went on to build in 1948 the world’s first postwar stored-program computer with a memory, called Baby, at the University of Manchester, another publicly funded institution. The commercial development of computers followed swiftly, by companies such as Ferranti. This pattern of government funding of early-stage research, either through government agencies including the military or through universities, followed by commercial applications is common. As well as the computer and electronics industries, the Internet, and the World Wide Web (created by Tim Berners-Lee at the CERN research laboratory funded by a consortium of governments), the modern pharmaceuticals and biotech sectors, and commercial applications of new materials, such as graphene, all have roots in publicly financed basic research and early-stage development. Touch screens and the computer mouse were also the result of US government-funded research.16 The MP3 format was created by a small group of researchers at a public research lab in Germany, belonging to the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. Their patent allows shrinking the size of audio files by a factor of 12, while maintaining sound quality. This innovation made music sharing via the Internet possible and contributed to major upheaval in the global music industry. Commercial firms did not initially adopt it as a standard, and it became widely diffused because the creators responded by distributing encoding software to users for a low price and did not pursue hackers who then made it available for free. Mariana Mazzucato, an economist who specializes in the causes and impacts of innovation, uses the example of some of the basic digital innovations such as the Internet, GPS and touch screens to argue that the government has an essential role in funding research and start-up technology companies. She sees the government’s role not just as filling in activities the market will not undertake, perhaps because the returns are too far in the future and uncertain, but also as shaping what kind of activities the private sector will do. In her view, strategic investment by the US government helps explain why American companies dominate high-tech industries including digital and biotechnology. Competitions and prizesA quite different policy for the support of innovation is to award a prize for the successful development of a solution to a problem that will meet some specifications. The prize-winner is rewarded for the cost of development, rather than with a monopoly over the novel idea or method, and the innovation then goes immediately into the public domain. For example, in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, the XPrize Foundation offered $1 million to any team who could significantly improve current technology for the clean-up of oil spills. Within a year, a team had devised a method that quadrupled the industry-standard recovery rate. A more famous example is the invention by watchmaker John Harrison of the marine chronometer, a device that for the first time allowed the (reasonably) accurate measurement of a vessel’s longitude at sea. Harrison started work on his chronometer in 1730 in response to an offer made in 1714 by the British government of a cash prize (about £2.5 million in 2014 prices) for the invention of a device to measure longitude. Harrison’s approach to the challenge was to build an accurate clock small enough to be seaborne in order that the Greenwich time at which the sun reached its zenith could be determined. This would allow the ship’s position west of Greenwich to be calculated. The problem had attracted some of the best minds of the time, including Isaac Newton’s. Harrison produced many versions, each better than the last, but argued with the government about whether he deserved the prize money. The argument arose because Harrison’s solution to the problem was rather different from that expected by the government. He was awarded a series of smaller sums over the years.
Another example of where competitions work well is the creation of prizes for the successful development of drugs for neglected diseases. These drugs treat illnesses that are common in parts of the world in which there is little pharmaceutical innovation because the private market for them is limited by the low incomes of those afflicted with the diseases.17
Question 21.9 Choose the correct answer(s)Which of the following policies promote efficient innovation processes?
Question 21.10 Choose the correct answer(s)Which of the following statements are correct regarding public policies for innovation?
21.9 ConclusionThe UK and the Netherlands, birthplaces of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, were not unique in the intelligence and creativity of their peoples. China, arguably, had proven to be an equally, if not more inventive society, in earlier years having first developed paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass, and literally hundreds of other important innovations. Other countries, notably Japan, were adept at the adaptation and spread of novel methods and ideas. But the combined pull of innovation rents and the push of competition to survive that was characteristic of the innovation and diffusion process under capitalism made it a uniquely dynamic economic system that transformed the British and Dutch economies. Public policy also played an important part. For innovators to take the risk of introducing a new product or production process, it is crucial that their innovation rents not be seized by the government or others. This requires that property rights be protected by a well-functioning legal system as was the case in the UK, the Netherlands, and other countries that experienced the kink in the hockey stick of per capita income early. More recently, Silicon Valley, the German innovation system, and other successful examples of innovation have been assisted by governments that provide complementary inputs such as physical infrastructure, basic research and public education, guaranteed markets (like those for military goods), and allow the innovator only a temporary monopoly so that competition eventually will reduce prices.18 In a nutshell, it is this combination of private incentives and supportive public policy that explains why capitalism can be such a dynamic economic system. Among the consequences in many countries are the increased living standards as measured by income per capita (documented in Unit 1), as well as the reduction in working hours seen in Unit 3. But remember that Joseph Schumpeter, the economist who contributed most to our current understanding of innovation (and who you encountered in Unit 16) called the process of technological change ‘creative destruction’. In this unit, we have stressed the creative part: the development of new processes and products that allow us to produce our livelihoods with progressively less time at work. But in Unit 16 we studied the ways in which the process of technological change also puts people out of work and devalues once respected and well-paid skills. And in Unit 20, you saw that the expansion of production and the substitution of fossil-fuel-based energy for human and other animal energy made possible by technological change has posed challenges to our environment, even as improved technologies hold out the hope that under the right policies, these challenges may be addressed. Economists can help to design these policies and to evaluate the benefits and costs of ways of promoting beneficial innovations and also addressing the ‘destructive’ aspect of new technologies.
21.10 ReferencesConsult CORE’s Fact checker for a detailed list of sources.
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