Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights
比较奖励制度与知识产权（专利和版权）对创新的激励效果，发现奖励制度可避免垄断但需更多信息，并证明让创新者自主选择奖励或知识产权的可选奖励制度优于单纯的知识产权。
This paper compares reward systems to intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights). Under a reward system, innovators are paid for innovations directly by the government (possibly on the basis of sales), and innovations pass immediately into the public domain. Thus, reward systems engender incentives to innovate without creating the monopoly power of intellectual property rights. But a principal difficulty with rewards is the information required for their determination. We conclude in our model that intellectual property rights do not possess a fundamental social advantage over reward systems and that an optional reward system—under which innovators choose between rewards and intellectual property rights—is superior to intellectual property rights.