Information about essays

•The deadline for essays: April, 1. midnight

•Missing the deadline costs 2 point per day

• Send the essay to me. I try to confirm receiving your essay in 24 hours. Include your name and the course title etc.

• Essay: 3-10 pages.

•You can choose your topic in so far it is loosely related to the subject matter of the course

•Can be part of your thesis or seminar work

•Try to be as coherent and clear as possible

•Preferably use economic argumentation, correct economic and legal concepts

- e.g. Inappropriate title of the course: -1 points

•Do not use jargon if not needed

Suggestion 1: Summarize a scientific paper on IPRs. Tell me the paper with your own words. Evaluate the analysis and results critically in the light of real world or other literature.

• Note that the technical level of scientific papers vary a lot. Choose a level that suits to you.

• Journal of Economic Perspectives is non-technical and excellent

- e.g. Spring 2005 issue

•American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings are relatively non-technical, relatively excellent and extremely short •Law and management journals are often non-technical. The same applies to Research Policy

Suggestion 2: Summarize a book or larger body of work

•The books by Jaffe & Lerner, Rivette & Kline are non-technical and excellent, and short for a book. You can also choose a chapter from there

•You can also summarize a chapter from Scotchmer’s bookthat is not required for the exam.

• A recent (September 2006) special issue in Journal of Economic Surveys could also work

• A recent WP on the objectives of the EPO by Guido Friebel et al. www.idei.fr

Suggestion 3: Choose a policy or management topic. Analyze it in the light of literature and real-world/empirical evidence

• Pool with suggestion 1. Search for a suitable paper of the topic and summarize it.

• Pool with suggestion 2. Search for a suitable larger body of work dealing with the topic and summarize it.

e.g.: - Piracy and music industry. Special issue in Journal of Law and Economics, April 2006. Summarize one paper from there (option 1) or the whole issue (option 2)

- Open source: Lerner & Tirole, JIE-02, JEP-05, Lakhani & Von Hippel ResPol-03, Evans&Wolf Harvard Business Review -05 , Maurer&Scotchmer-06, etc….