The market and science represent opposite institutional extremes: the market's central idea is a perpetual ironclad property right (e.g., over land), while science is the opposite—it rewards you precisely for publishing, giving away, and renouncing any property right over a valuable idea—and for most discoveries the US has settled on a healthy middle (patents, copyrights, secrecy) that grants partial, temporary property rights rather than perpetual ones.

definitionpending

Speaker

Paul Romer

Evidence Quote

we have these two extremes of the institutions of the market and the institutions of science. And what's really interesting at the policy level... is where where do most of the interesting ideas lie?

Source

Paul Romer on Growth 8/27/2007EconTalk
Created: 6/16/2026, 2:38:24 PM

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