BEYOND THE HYPE: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY/KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Abstract.  This paper explores the debates surrounding whether or not we have now moved into a new knowledge economy and/or knowledge society and if so whether this shift is as significant and as far reaching as the industrial revolution. In this possible transformation the place of information communications technologies has been crucial. Debate has occurred across both economics and sociology with differing emphases as is shown in the ranges of definitions that we review in the paper. One consistent factor is the lack of clarity and consistency between them both within and across the disciplines. In order to explore the issues that the debates raises in a more grounded way, the paper explores them in relation to intellectual property (IP) and the intellectual commons in the process of innovation, growth and economic development. The paper is developed through an analysis first of the industrial revolution and the role within this of uncertainty, technologies, complementarities and elective affinities and the way IP was protected and controlled through patents, secrecy, being first to the market and copyright. The second part of the paper examines definitions of the knowledge economy and society and the role within these of information communication technologies in order to explore whether the ways that IP is protected and controlled have changed. In the debate about the 'knowledge economy and society' the role of innovation via human capital with a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities has been emphasized. The role of IP thus remains central but is now challenged by the rise of new forms of communication, which make its protection harder and move much of the concern with respect to regulation to a global rather than national and local level.     

Group Selection and the Limits to Altruism

Several evolutionary mechanisms have been identified in the literature that would generate altruism in humans. The most powerful (except for kin selection) and most controversial is group selection, as recently analyzed by Sober & D.S. Wilson. I do not take a stand on the issue of the existence of group selection. Instead, I examine the level of human altruism that could exist if group selection were an engine of human evolution. For the Sober & Wilson mechanism to work, groups practicing altruism must grow faster than other groups. I call altruistic behavior that would lead to faster growth efficient altruism. This often consists of cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma. ltruistic acts such as helping a temporarily hungry or injured person would qualify as efficient altruism. Efficient altruism would also require monitoring recipients to avoid shirking. Utilitarianism would be an ethical system consistent with efficient altruism, but Marxism or the Rawlsian system would not. Discussions of efficient altruism also help understand intuitions about fairness. We perceive those behaviors as fair that are consistent with efficient altruism. It is important to understand that, even if humans are selected to be altruistic, the forms of altruism that might exist must be carefully considered and ircumscribed.     

A maximum likelihood approach to estimating dynamic models with unobserved independent variables

A maximum likelihood method to estimate the parameters of dynamic models containing unobserved independent variables is proposed. The approach is to maximize the likelihood of the residuals produced by the recursive Kalman filter equations applied to the model in state-space form. A simulation study is presented comparing the proposed method to the instrumental variable approach. An example using real data is given which estimates models of the Permanent-Income Hypothesis.     

Embodied and Disembodied Technical Change in Fisheries: An Analysis of the Sète Trawl Fishery, 1985–1999

Overfishing and excess capacity in mostfisheries around the world have generated considerableand increasing concern about their biological and economic performance ramifications. Theseproblems, in part, stem from substantialinvestment in technical improvements to boats andequipment in fishing fleets, which exacerbatesexcess fishing capacity and low returns tofishing effort and investment, given regulatoryand biological constraints. However, little attempt hasbeen made to quantify the extent or effects oftechnical change in fisheries. In this paper, we usedetailed data on innovation patterns for 19vessels in the Sète trawl fleet of southernFrance to evaluate the contributions oftechnical change to catch rates. We find thatembodied technical change enhanced productivity by approximately one percent per year between 1985 and 1999, but that external (disembodied) events counteractedthis trend, causing a net output decline ofabout three percent per year.