Essays in the economics of knowledge

Economic Analysis of Knowledge: The History of Thought and the Central Themes

“…I would like to thank two anonymous referees for valuable comments on the earlier version of this paper. It was based on the introductory chapter of my doctoral dissertation (Leppälä, ), which was largely written in Fall 2010 during my visit at the Center for the History of Political Economy in Duke University. As such, I would also like to thank the faculty and visitors at the Center as well as those who commented on my dissertation manuscript, most importantly my thesis pre‐examiners, Panu Kalmi and Tuomas Takalo, and my official opponent, Suzanne Scotchmer, for their feedback and suggestions.…”

Economic Analysis of Knowledge: The History of Thought and the Central Themes

“…This brings us back to the incentives of communication. Furthermore, as is argued in Leppälä (2011b), even if something is communicated it does not necessarily imply that knowledge is transferred. Available information does not automatically translate to shared knowledge, since incentives play a role when individuals attempt to assess the truthworthiness of information.…”

“…This brings us to the correspondence between information and knowledge and the issue of justification. As is argued in Leppälä (2011b), we can divide the issue of correspondence into two parts: capability and reliability. Capability concerns the issue whether the sender (or seller) has a true belief, i.e.…”

“…However, they do agree that excludability is desirable in principle. Leppälä (2011b) analyzes this issue with a game-theoretic discrete public good model. Nonrivalry implies that knowledge goods are lumpy or indivisible, which suggests that they should be studied as discrete public goods.…”