It is shown that, in an open ladder-type atomic system with spontaneously generated coherence (SGC), regardless of the existence of an incoherent pumping, a lasing without inversion (LWI) gain is always remarkable larger than in the system without SGC, by adjusting the strength of SGO. Moreover, LWI gain in the system without incoherent pumping is much larger than that with incoherent pumping, within some strength of SGO; while in the corresponding closed system with SGO, we can-t obtain LWI gain at any strength of SGO, if no incoherent pumping is applied. Recently, investigation of effects of spontaneously generated coherence (SGC, also known as vacuum-induced coherence) on gain (absorption), dispersion, populations and etc. has attracted much attention c1~93. However,most of these studies are carried out in closed atomic systems. For example, Menon and Agarwal E~j showed that in a closed A_type atomic system, SGC induces electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and coherent population trapping (CPT),which changes the time scales related to the CPT state and brings quantitative changes in the line profile; Cheng et al. E~3 found that optical bistability (OB) can be obtained due to SGC within certain parameter range and the SGC significantly affects the OB behavior in a ladder-type atomic system. In this paper, we will analyze the effects of SGC on LWI in an open laddePtype system D~ The open ladder-type of three level atomic system considered here is shown in Fig. 1. The transition I1 -* 12> is coupled by a strong driving field of frequency w~ with Rabi frequency G =/z~3 9 e~/r/,while the transition 12>-* 13> is coupled by a weak probe field of frequency o4 with Rabi frequency g :/~1~ 9 e jr/. The level 12> (13>) spontaneously decays to level [ 1>(12>) at the rate )'~ (7~). A~ and A2 denote the frequency detuning of the driving laser and the probe laser, respectively. The atomic injection rates for levels I1> and 12 are ]~ and J~ ,respectively. The atomic exit rate from the cavity is r0. An incoherent pump with a pumping rate R is applied between levels [1> and [3>. In such a case,the density-matrix equations in a rotating frame can be written as In the following discussion, ]1 3. J2 = r0 is necessary to keep the total number of the atoms constant. Here, two coupling fields of different frequencies are included, resulting in an additional term of (2pv/~u P23 ) in the optical Bloch equation, as an effect of SGC. A parameter