Bryan Caplan and Arnold Kling

Information Goods, Intellectual Property

A Category Archive (92 entries)

Clay Shirky Podcast

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Great Interview with Russ Roberts and Clay Shirky. I find lots of the interview fascinating. One of Shirky's comment on Wikipedia is that it is low-cost to remove vandalism, and that helps to drive out vandalism. I hope he is... MORE

The Age of Non-government Public Goods

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Clay Shirky says, all of Wikipedia, the whole project—every page, every edit, every line of code, in every language Wikipedia exists in—that represents something like the cumulation of 98 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin... MORE

Optimal Citation in the Google Age

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
One of the best examples of path-dependence is the format of academic citations. Who cares what city a book was published in? Who ever did? But in the google age, tradition is even sillier. Volume numbers? Page numbers? These days,... MORE

Two from Will Wilkinson

Behavioral Economics and Rationality
Arnold Kling
He suggests that there are no limits to growth. In a special issue of the American Economic Review about thirty years ago, some physical chemists wrote that once the energy problem is solved, nothing is scarce. If material X is... MORE

David Friedman on Property Rights

Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Arnold Kling
He wrote, The right to decide whether or not I turn on the lights in my house is worth more to me than to my neighbors, so in principle I should be able to buy their permission. The problem is... MORE

Unchecked Government Marches On

Regulation and Subsidies
Arnold Kling
Without irony, the Washington Post headline blares, FTC Wants to Know What Big Brother Knows About You The crime under investigation is targeted advertising on the Internet, where firms use databases to try to serve ads that are relevant to... MORE

Not on Fire for Kindle

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
[UPDATE: I found the web browser on the Kindle. You have to go to the Kindle home, select menu, then select "experimental." Of course, I am one of those troglodytes who uses a PC client for email. But once I... MORE

Chris Anderson Podcast on Economics of "Free"

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
There are several interesting topics covered in this podcast between Russ Roberts and Chris Anderson. The general topic is the disruptive impact of computers and communication technology, and in particular the tendency for prices to fall to zero for things... MORE

Wilkinson and Shirky

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Want to see two bright, good-looking guys discuss economics and media? Then watch the latest episode of Free Will, with Will Wilkinson interviewing Clay Shirky. The topic is one of my favorites, and these are two of my favorite thinkers.... MORE

Creating a Life: Why Bad Publicity Wasn't Good Publicity

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I really enjoyed Sylvia Hewlett's Creating a Life, but feminists were outraged. (Check out all the 1-star reviews on Amazon). Normally, I'd expect all this negative publicity to be great for sales. All publicity is good publicity, right? But Hewlett's... MORE

Costs and Benefits of the Patent System

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Patent Failure is a new book by James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer. Here is a lecture by Bessen. The book's introduction emphasizes the importance of what the authors call "the notice function." An efficient property system notifies non-owners of... MORE

What is Revolutionary Science?

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Bruce Charlton and Peter Andras write, a research foundation working in a specific scientific field might at present spend 100 million dollars per year – and might spread this money among ten 10 million dollar program grants. In all likelihood,... MORE

Hal Varian on Modern Capital

Austrian Economics
Arnold Kling
He writes, The only thing one could do with those railroad tracks was carry trains. It would have been fantastic if the miles of excess railroad tracks could have been transformed into highways to service the new growth industry coming... MORE

Advertising: What Is Not Seen

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Here's a gem from the first article in Henderson's Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:The rise of the self-service store, for example, was aided by consumer knowledge of branded goods. Before the advent of advertising, customers relied on knowledgeable shopkeepers in selecting... MORE

The Internet, New York, Detroit, and House Concerts

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Edward L. Glaeser and Giacomo A.M. Ponsetto write, This paper advances the hypothesis that improvements in transportation and communica- tion technology can explain both the decline of Detroit and the reinvigoration of Manhattan. While we present some suggestive evidence, the... MORE

Kindle-nomics

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Joel Johnson writes, the $400 premium just to get the Kindle reader isn't the last fee you'll pay. I'm not talking about paying for eBooks from Amazon, which are priced typically at $10 or less, but for the additional fees... MORE

Woodheads and Spam

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Steve Hsu writes, Both the malware and spam problems are a kind of tax on the overall internet population caused by the least sophisticated users (I won't reference IQ here, but there is certainly a correlation). It's the least sophisticated... MORE

Paul Graham on Software Patents

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
A commenter on a previous post mentioned a couple of essays by Paul Graham. He is one of my favorite writers, and it's been too long since I visited his site. Here is an essay on software patents. One thing... MORE

Viacom vs. Google/YouTube

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Paul Kedrosky writes, if Viacom wins this suit and busts YouTube--and there is a very good chance it will win; it is, after all, uncontested that this is Viacom's media property we are talking about--that won't change what consumers want... MORE

Online Content Bundling

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Steve Levitt asks In general, it doesn't seem like a good idea to give your product away if you are a company, but given that most newspapers do, why doesn't the WSJ? ...Either the WSJ is making a mistake or... MORE

Drug Patents

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
This week's econtalk, featuring Richard Epstein talking about patent issues with respect to pharmaceuticals, I found to be really taxing mentally. I have thought a great deal about these issues, yet Epstein was talking faster than I could absorb. Also,... MORE

The Internet, Punditry, and Scholarship

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
My latest essay includes an analysis of the comparative advantage that I have using the Internet. The Net boosts my salience the most. In an environment where what counts is reaction time, I do well. Hal Varian does the "worst"... MORE

Journalism, Blogging, and Truth

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
David Warsh writes, Classified advertising, especially help-wanted and houses for sale, near-monopolies for daily newspapers for more than a century, have been especially hard-hit. Consolidation in the once-exotic world of trade magazines has been the rule. Significant revenues from other... MORE

Silent Signals

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I didn't know logicians had a name for it, but they do: it's called the Argument from Silence. The argument from silence (also called argumentum a silentio in Latin) is that the silence of a speaker or writer about X... MORE

True Love and the International Marriage Market

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Tyler asks his readers to help a 51-year-old American male find a high-quality wife in the international marriage market: What traits should he look for in a foreign woman? He should avoid countries which lost the Cold War. Avoid women... MORE

Prediction Markets?

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Eric Crampton
I'm a fan of Hanson's idea markets. Imitation as flattery: I put together a Marsden grant proposal (New Zealand's NSF) to start up election stock markets here that would subsequently be expanded into policy and decision markets. Unfortunately, the grant... MORE

A Nice Statement of My Position on IP

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Some economists would argue that any contracts voluntarily entered into should be enforced. That is what lead them to argue that, if I agree not to redistribute your book, then I should be bound by that agreement. In this view,... MORE

The Anti-IP Crusaders

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine write, Intellectual property law is not about your right to control your copy of your idea - this is a right that we have just pointed out, does not need a great deal of... MORE

The Future of Mass Media

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Jim Pinkerton writes, Every country with ambitions on the international stage will soon have its own state-supported media. ...In addition, around the world, states will want to "help" their media. Not satisfied with what the free market is bringing about,... MORE

The Mystery of Classism

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
My colleague Don Boudreaux stands accused of being a snob. He said: Service-sector jobs are the most desirable. Until his retirement, my dad had a manufacturing job: he worked as a welder in a shipyard. Like most parents, his dream... MORE

Eschew Sesquipedalian Obsfucation

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I'm a fan of Rick Harbaugh's work (with Nick Feltovich and Ted To) on counter-signaling. The motivating paragraph of "Too Cool for School" still blows me away: Contrary to this standard implication, high types sometimes avoid the signals that should... MORE

Intellectual Property Absolutism vs. Pragmatism

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Greg Perkins writes, The crucial distinction between discovery and invention lies in their object: facts of nature are what they are and exist waiting to be discovered, while inventions are objects which would not exist without a creator. So intellectual... MORE

Which Monopoly?

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Austan Goolsbee, one of the new members of the "Economic Scene" rotation at the New York Times (Tyler Cowen is another), writes In their fervor to free listeners from the shackles of their iPods, French politicians have abandoned one of... MORE

Modeling the Man Date

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I just got back from a conference with Will Wilkinson where he mentioned that the New York Times had canonized the "man date": Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports.... MORE

Patent Law

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Two Three views. First, Michael Rosen writes, Well, first, as almost everyone involved in the patent reform debate acknowledges, we must fully fund the PTO. ...There are not nearly enough examiners to review, revise, and recognize incoming patent applications. There... MORE

News Without Paper

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Glenn Harlan Reynolds writes, What would a new-era newspaper look like? First, I think I'd skip the "paper" part. I've visited a lot of newspaper offices, and many of them proudly display the printing presses that produce their product, just... MORE

Pushback on "Fair Use" for Patents

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Michael Rosen and Thomas J. Van Gilder write, The patent system has not developed such a mechanism ["fair use"]. This is so in part because patents tend to deal more with the physical implementation of ideas rather than their expression.... MORE

The Blackberry Patent Dispute

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
I offer my two cents. Some of the problems with patent laws could be fixed by developing standards for "fair use." Under a "fair use" standard, there would be circumstances where one company could use another company's patented ideas in... MORE

You're Not Fooling Anyone: The Futility of Libertarian Euphemisms

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Yesterday GMU had a mini-debate between Dan Klein and Pete Boettke on "Is It Time to Retire the Label 'Austrian Economics?'" Dan said Yes; Pete said No. Dan's proposal, roughly, was to (a) expand the set of heroes to include... MORE

Economic Theory for the Socially Perplexed

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Why is getting along with other people so complicated? Shows like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm have explored this question with hilarious results. But last week Rick Harbaugh of Indiana University came to speak at GMU, and convinced me that... MORE

Lemons for Valentine's Day

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Match Point, yet another Woody Allen movie about adultery, reminds me of a question I've often wondered about: Why hasn't the lemons problem killed adultery? To be more specific, why would any women want to steal a man who lies... MORE

Mmmm... Lunch

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
A story in the Washington Post says, A Verizon Communications Inc. executive yesterday accused Google Inc. of freeloading for gaining access to people's homes using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.... MORE

Insurance versus Charity

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
One of the most effective ways to take the sting out of charity - for recipients and involuntary donors alike - is to give it a new name: "insurance." If you buy fire insurance and your house burns down, you... MORE

Pricing the Internet

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Tyler Cowen steps into an old issue, of how Internet usage ought to be priced. In purely economic terms, the idea of charging Google or other "bandwidth hogs" does not sound outrageous. The casual assumption here is that bandwidth is... MORE

Econbot?

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
"New Economist" writes, The latest issue of First Monday carries an article by Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig which shows that on at least basic historical facts, the internet can provide a surprisingly accurate indication of the historical consensus...... MORE

Your Zip Code or Yourself

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Auto insurance regulations in California are going to change. At first glance, the changes look completely reasonable: Insurers will have to base rates on the driving records of the people insured. From the Daily News: Moving to end years of... MORE

Old News

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Tyler Cowen points to this essay suggesting that newspapers convert to nonprofit status. Over three years ago, I wrote The newspaper business is going to die within the next twenty years. Newspaper publishing will continue, but only as a philanthropic... MORE

The Big Lie

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I'm a trusting person by nature, so it's useful for me to reflect on how deceptive people can be. The following excerpt really helped focus my attention. It's from a speech given to the Associated Press in 1933 by Adolf... MORE

The Music Copyright Tax, Revisited

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Alex Tabarrok writes The conclusion seems right to me - file-sharing increases social-welfare, so in theory a win-win solution is possible, but in practice the increase comes at the expense of music firms. That reminded me of Zimran ("winterspeak") Ahmed's... MORE

The Last Mile will be Wireless

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
The Wall Street Journal reports, Google Inc. unveiled the latest such effort Friday with a proposal to provide free, wireless high-speed Internet access in the city of San Francisco. The service would allow users to bypass fee-based connections of cable... MORE

Practicing What I Preach: How I Fight Statistical Discrimination

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
In a recent post, I said: If you really want to improve your group's image, telling other groups to stop stereotyping won't work. The stereotype is based on the underlying distribution of fact. It is far more realistic to turn... MORE

Suckers of the World, Bet!

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I repeat the adage "All publicity is good publicity" every chance I get. So I shouldn't have needed iSteve to explain why Matthew Simmons was smart to make a sucker bet with John Tierney: What I realize now is that... MORE

Don't Call Me Stupid

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I've proposed several alternatives to the adverse selection explanation for missing insurance markets. Here's another, with a somewhat Hansonian flavor: In part, people buy insurance so they don't "look stupid" when something bad happens to them. If you get in... MORE

In Search of Another Theory of Missing Insurance Markets

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
When economists notice that nobody sells insurance for X, they have a standard explanation: adverse selection. Why can't you buy flood insurance? Supposedly, because the highest-risk people will be first in line to buy it, which raises premiums, which encourages... MORE

Crashing Into Stereotypes

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I normally wouldn't want to watch a movie in which "A series of racially charged events connects the lives of a disparate lot of Los Angelenos," (full review here) but the reviews of Crash were so glowing that I made... MORE

Contrarian Like a Conformist

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Robin Hanson is guest blogging this week at Marginal Revolution. In his first post, he explains how he chose his big post-tenure research project: He took the unconventional step of asking other people what they thought, and averaging their responses:... MORE

The Food Court Economy

Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
In the second essay in a series, I write, Think of the economy as a restaurant, or, better yet, as a Food Court. Behind the Food Court there is a farm, where plants and animals grow spontaneously in adequate but... MORE

Economics of New York City

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
The prolific Edward Glaeser writes, 28 percent of Manhattan’s payroll goes to workers in a single three-digit industry. 56 percent of Manhattan’s payroll goes to workers in four three-digit industries. New York’s 20th century success primarily reflects its ability to... MORE

Detect Lie

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
In the game Dungeons & Dragons, there is a magic spell called detect lie (or at least there was back in the first edition). A couple of my favorite high school gaming sessions revolved around the player characters flinging accusations... MORE

Siegel for the Long Run

Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
An interesting interview with Jeremy Siegel. In 50 years the United States will be more aged than all of Florida is today, but we will be, existing in a younger world. So, what I see is exactly the same pattern.... MORE

Normality Signaling: A Test Case

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
My student Howard Wu passed along an interesting anecdote on signaling that you're normal. True story: In my company once we received a resume sent along with a dress shoe. And the cover letter says: "now that I have a... MORE

Second Thoughts About Stats vs. Personal Experience

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
I can't believe I took so long to discover Thomas Gilovich's excellent How We Know What Isn't So. I've read almost all of the semi-popular books in cognitive psychology, and this turns out to be one of the best. All... MORE

Hanson Link Fix

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
My initial link for Hanson's working paper was incorrect. It's now been fixed. If you couldn't find it before, here it is. My apologies.... MORE

Terrorism Betting Markets: Inquiring Minds Know

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
A new working paper by Robin Hanson observes: "When a controversy erupts in the media, and widely differing views are expressed, it is natural to wonder which opinion is the one more favored by those who are most informed about... MORE

Why Be Normal?

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
Economists love to pour cold water on new ideas: "If your plan is so great, why aren't people already doing it?" And usually we're right to do so. Most of the economy's backseat drivers aren't fit to run an apple... MORE

Death of Newspapers

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
The Washington Post reports that newspapers are struggling. "Print is dead," Sports Illustrated President John Squires told a room full of newspaper and magazine circulation executives at a conference in Toronto in November. His advice? "Get over it," meaning publishers... MORE

Giles and Stereotype Accuracy

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
The weakest part of Martin Giles' Why Americans Hate Welfare is his dismissive treatment of stereotypes. He cites a number of psychological experiments on the emergence of baseless stereotypes. But he at best downplays the growing literature on stereotype accuracy.... MORE

Pricing and Marginal Cost

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Don Boudreaux looks at cases where prices should be above marginal cost. Jones builds the bridge and charges tolls to pay for it. When the bridge is not congested, the marginal cost of allowing each driver access to the bridge... MORE

Lovecraft, Sutter, and the Media

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
The master of horror is of course not Stephen King, but H.P. Lovecraft. (My personal favorite is "The Dunwich Horror"). Lovecraft lived a life of aristocratic penury, and he wasn't too happy about it: "He who strives to produce salable... MORE

Nobel Prize-Winner Makes Intermediate Error

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Bryan Caplan
In Globalization and Its Discontents, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz tells us: Behind the free-market ideology there is a model, often attributed to Adam Smith, which argues that market forces - the profit motive - drive the economy to efficient... MORE

The Long Tail

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Chris Anderson writes, What's really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you've got a market bigger than the hits. Take books: The average Barnes & Noble carries... MORE

Becker-Posner on Drug Patents

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
A good intro to the economic issues surrounding pharmaceutical patents, from Richard Posner and Gary Becker. Posner writes, Invention is a cumulative process; a new invention is usually an incremental improvement on an existing one. So the more patents that... MORE

Cost of Digital Storage

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Phil Bowermaster looks at the cost of storing all of the books in the Library of Congress catalog. The initial scanning work is the only part of the plan that's likely to present much of an expense factor. According to... MORE

Ideas and Growth

Growth: Causal Factors
Arnold Kling
Charles I. Jones writes, The nonrivalry of ideas implies that increasing returns to scale is likely to characterize production possibilities. This leads to a world in which scale itself can serve as a source of long run growth. The more... MORE

Barbell Labor Market?

Labor Market
Arnold Kling
Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane predict that computer automation is leading to a split in the labor market. Good jobs will increasingly require expert thinking and complex communication. Jobs that do not require these tasks will not pay a... MORE

Copyright Law and Utilitarianism

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Richard A. Epstein has written an interesting essay on copyright law. He concludes, But for years now, my own private campaign has been to insist that the strength of the natural law theories rested on their implicit utilitarian (broadly conceived)... MORE

Red Sox Technologies

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
What do you call a technology that looks promising but always lets you down? In this essay, I point out that one example is micropayments. Another example, I argue, is virtual classrooms. Most web-based education software seems designed to enable... MORE

Intellectual Property

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Here are some interesting comments on intellectual property that have appeared recently. Lawrence Lessig defends drug patents. I don't know if the alternatives would be better - I don't believe patents are bad in every case. But I do know... MORE

Government and Research

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
In this essay, I argue that we should not fear losing our technology edge. In doing the cost-benefit analysis on government funding of scientific research, one factor that should not be given weight is national competitiveness. I can see worrying... MORE

Hayekians vs. Stiglitzians

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
I contrast Hayek and Stiglitz on the importance of imperfect information. Hayek would have the government tolerate messy competition. His point is that with the optimal outcome unknown, government resolution of issues shuts off the learning process that market competition... MORE

Intellectual Property

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
N. Stephan Kinsella argues against the concept of intellectual property. On the utilitarian argument for intellectual property, he says, It is debatable whether copyrights and patents really are necessary to encourage the production of creative works and inventions, or that... MORE

Economics of Content

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Clay Shirky writes that the Internet helps to break the link between fame and economic success for writers. For an author to be famous, many people had to have read, and therefore paid for, his or her books. Fortune was... MORE

Robots and Comparative Advantage

International Trade
Arnold Kling
Using the theory of comparative advantage, James Miller explains why robots cannot replace humans completely. Now, assume that in our simple wine/cake world robots begin large-scale manufacturing. They could easily change the relative prices of wine and cake. Perhaps if... MORE

Information Goods and Income Distribution

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
James Miller has an interesting thesis concerning information goods. Since most of the cost is up-front research and development, he argues that these goods will be priced attractively for mass consumption. As easily copied informational goods become more important to... MORE

Terrorism Futures

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
A number of economists and others are defending the idea of a futures market to predict terrorism. This idea was abandoned after Senators objected to it. Hal Varian writes, The Iowa Electronic Markets has been predicting election results for 12... MORE

Price Discrimination and Information

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Andrew Odlyzko has an interesting article on price discrimination in the information age. He sees the databases that companies are gathering (from supermarket membership cards, for example) as tools for charging on the basis of price sensitivity. price discrimination will... MORE

Drug Price Discrimination?

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Derek Lowe compares the fact that prescription drugs cost less outside the U.S. to the phenomenon of price discrimination by airlines. Most consumers [of pharmaceuticals] in the US don't realize that they're subsidizing the lower prices for everyone else, whereas... MORE

Comment of the Week, 04-09-03

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
The signal-to-noise ratio in our comments continues to be very high. See the Economics of Hydrogen thread and the imperfect markets thread, for example. But I give the comment of the week award this week to Robert Musil. A brief... MORE

Lessig on Copyright

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
In 1998, Congress extended copyright terms on both new and existing works. Lawrence Lessig tried unsuccessfully to have this extension overturned by the Supreme Court. In this interview, Lessig explains the weakness of the economic argument for the copyright extension.... MORE

Anti-anti-economics

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
In Suits and Geeks, I discuss some information-age economic issues. As Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian wrote, "Technology changes. Economic laws do not." My essay concludes, My goal is to see ignorance reduced on both sides of the Suit-Geek divide.... MORE

Is Copyright Necessary?

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
Douglas Clement does an outstanding job of providing background on the way that economists have dealt with the issue of copyright in the context of economic growth. (An earlier version of Clement's article first appeared here.) Clement's article revolves around... MORE

The Economics of Web Logs

Information Goods, Intellectual Property
Arnold Kling
EconLog is a Web Log, or Blog. My view is that some of the value of blogs comes from the collective filtering that they provide. I sketch a sort of economic model, in which everyone lives on a circle, with... MORE

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