Dead poets' property—how does copyright influence price?
利用1814年英国版权法对已故作者作品版权期限的意外延长，研究发现版权期限翻倍导致书籍价格大幅上涨约50%，并增强了出版商跨期价格歧视的能力。
Abstract Copyrights create long‐lived intellectual property in goods ranging from science, literature, and music to news, film, and software. The economic effects of copyright, however, are difficult to identify in modern settings. This article exploits an unintended differential increase in copyright length under the UK Copyright Act of 1814—in favor of books by dead authors—to examine the effects of longer copyright terms on price. We find that a doubling in copyright length was associated with a substantial (roughly 50%) increase in the price of books. Additional years of copyright improved publishers' ability to practice intertemporal price discrimination.