OPENING THE BLACK-BOX OF INNOVATION

The paper views the R&D process as encompassing several actors with dissonant objectives: the creators, the financiers, the owners of the patent, and the users of the innovation. It endogenizes the governance of R&D and the distribution of investments, patent rights, and return streams among the actors. Such an approach is able to provide theoretical foundations for the observed organization and the legal treatment of R&D and for an interpretation of the empirical evidence on Schumpeterian hypotheses. It can also help frame public intervention in the R&D sector.