Abstract
The intellectual property (IP) law has been forcefully challenged by scholars and multiple anti-IP movementshave been pushed by activists in recent years. The critiques from scholars mainly focused on the enclosure ofinformation and knowledge enforced by IP law. And the activists of anti-IP movements argued for the openaccess to knowledge to promote creation.This study proposes an endogenous economic growth model highlighting the role of open-access knowledge ineconomic growth. The solution of the model shows that the production efficiency of knowledge, the convertingefficiency from knowledge products into human capital, and the externality of knowledge products, will haveimpacts on the economic growth rate. The policy implication of this study is that government’s intervention,such as the subsidy to the knowledge production, investment in the open-access knowledge, and regulation onthe quality of knowledge products, will have positive effects on economic growth.
Highlights
Since the middle of 20th century, the rapid development of digital technologies initiated a new round of technology revolution, the so-called “information revolution”, and pushed human society move forward to a new era
In 2004, these activists successfully prompted a call for a new development agenda of WIPO, resulting in the acceptance of the access to knowledge as one of the goals of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2007, Recommendation 19)
As well as the critique of the negative influence of intellectual property (IP) law on the economic development (e.g., Gallin & Scotchmer; 2002; Maskus, 2000; Shaver, 2008a), this study investigated the positive influence of open-access knowledge on economic growth
Summary
Since the middle of 20th century, the rapid development of digital technologies initiated a new round of technology revolution, the so-called “information revolution”, and pushed human society move forward to a new era. Manuel Castells (1999) called it as “network society.” They both argued that the new society is different from the old one in that the key social structures and activities are organized around electronically processed information. In this new society, the economic development model has changed tremendously because the wealth is created more from information and knowledge than natural resources. The economic development model has changed tremendously because the wealth is created more from information and knowledge than natural resources In this regard, the economy nowadays is called “knowledge economy” or “knowledge-based economy” (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1996). It developed a theoretical model to investigate the role of open-access knowledge in economic growth
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