Institutions, Property Rights and Markets - The case of Knowledge Markets

The purpose of this paper is to consider the basic questions relative to the creation and organization of markets for knowledge. The paper is organized as follows. We will first explain what means for us an intuitionalist approach of markets, and the key questions relative to the social construction of markets. On that basis, we will consider the specific problems posed by the creation of markets for knowledge. We will insist on three points: the importance of the “singularity” of each “products”, and of the complementarities between knowledge units, and knowledge transactions; the specific problems of evaluation of knowledge items; the importance to consider the systems of institutions implied by the commoditization of knowledge. In a last section we will try to illustrate these points by considering two historical cases: The emergence of a market for technology in the United States in the nineteenth century and the formation of a new “knowledge market regime” since the 1980’s. Key-Words: Innovation, knowledge, market, institutions. 1 CEPN-CNRS University Paris 13. 99 Av. J.B. Clément, 93430 Villetaneuse, France. E-mail: [email protected]. Paper presented at the EAEPE 2007 Conference, in Porto, Portugal, November 1-3, 2007. A precedent version of this paper has been presented at the 22 EGOS Colloquium, in Bergen, Norway, July 6-9, 2006.