Author (s):
Michael P. RyanDate:
2008Publication:
N/AAbstract:
The following article is the first in a series on Intellectual Property Rights to be featured on bizclir.com.Contemporary economic growth theory explains that economic development depends on technology change and argues that technological innovation drives long-run national economic growth. Critical to the development of technology and dissemination of knowledge are property rights. The absence of effective property rights has been identified as one of the main sources of low economic growth and poverty. Property rights, depending on how they are designed and enforced by the state, encourage or discourage productive investment and savings. As Nobel Prize winning economist Douglass North explains, "The profitability of investing in new knowledge and developing new techniques requires some degree of property rights over ideas and innovation."
In this article, Dr. Michael Ryan addresses the role of property rights in fostering economic growth. Dr. Ryan is director of the Creative and Innovative Economy Center at the George Washington University Law School, where he is coordinating and participating in a variety of research projects regarding the political economy, business, law, diplomacy, and ethics of creativity, innovation, and economic development in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. He is presently writing Knowledge Development: Creativity, Innovation, and the International Political Economy of Intellectual Property and is the author of Knowledge Diplomacy: Global Competition and the Politics of Intellectual Property. Dr. Ryan lectures frequently in Geneva to members of the diplomatic community and has lectured and conducted research in many developing countries. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan.
