Innovation: Market Failures and Public Policies
Working Paper 29173
DOI 10.3386/w29173
Issue Date
This is an invited chapter for the forthcoming Volume 4 of the Handbook of Industrial Organization. We summarize the state of the literature on the economics of innovation and highlight open policy questions. We first articulate the key market failures in markets for innovation, and then discuss how both scientific norms and market-oriented policies help overcome those market failures. We close by discussing recent work on the diffusion of inventions as well as on the links between innovation and inequality.