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Governing the innovation commons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2017

JASON POTTS Open the ORCID record for JASON POTTS [Opens in a new window]
JASON POTTS*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
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*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper analyses the origin of innovation using institutional economic theory. Because of distributed information and fundamental uncertainty, an efficient institutional context for the economic organization of innovation in its early stages is often that of a common pool resource. The theory of the innovation commons draws upon Hayek, Williamson and Ostrom to present the innovation problem as a combined knowledge problem, implicit contracting problem and collective action governance problem. Innovation commons theory also implies that Kirzner's model of entrepreneurial opportunity discovery extends to higher-order groups, suggesting a multilevel selection model of economic evolution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 14 , Special Issue 6: Special Issue on Innovation and Institutions From The Bottom Up , December 2018 , pp. 1025 - 1047
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2017 

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