The Economics of Knowledge Sharing : A New Institutional Approach

The Economics of Knowledge Sharing claims that useful economic knowledge is the most important foundation for the development of a sufficiently strong process of innovation. Within the framework of new institutional economics, the book looks at the institutional conditions required for the interactive sharing and dissemination of knowledge in the development of economies. It outlines in four distinct parts the complex societal process of human interaction by which knowledge is effectively generated and used. The book first considers knowledge sharing institutions, differentiating between types of interaction and types of actors. Secondly, it examines the economic role of knowledge and cognition, asking how and why human actors gather knowledge. It goes on to revisit historical questions of knowledge and embeds them within the contemporary debate, before finally reflecting on the significant relationship between technology and knowledge sharing in the digital age. Opening up a new area of research encompassing the institutional framework of the innovation process, this pathbreaking volume will be of enormous interest to a wide-ranging audience including economists in the fields of theory, innovation research, new institutional economics, evolutionary economics, history of economic thought, and education policy. As knowledge sharing interactions are akin to other kinds of competition aside from economic, this book will also be warmly welcomed by social and political scientists specialising in a variety of related topics.