There’s probably many more ideas that are riffs on this, I’m typing this up pretty much as shower thoughts:
Social design: One example is patents, which only have a finite lifespan. So if you actually invented something world changing, it’s not unexpected that you would only harvest a portion of the value, by design.
Private Information: Price discrimination is hard (people have heterogenous demand, it’s not like you can read off their willingness to pay off their forehead, and charge them that)
Investment/Uncertainty/Holdup: A lot of the value might involve risky endeavors, e.g. a new company or project. If an entrepreneur is starting something based on your idea, it’s hard to to charge them 50% or even 20% of their profit due to your invention, without collapsing the whole thing
Assignment of contribution: Ideas and their impact are probably really complicated, maybe involving combinations of existing ideas, so it’s hard to even attribute, much less collect payments on each component.
I think one point of writing up these shower thoughts, is pointing out that it is hard to know.
It’s better to have these ideas out there, than just deferring to Nordhaus.
The work of an economist or even Nordhaus, risks glorifying what are complex, ultimately ideological tinged views of the world. These are hard to be certain of, or even communicate to others with different worldviews.
There’s probably many more ideas that are riffs on this, I’m typing this up pretty much as shower thoughts:
Social design: One example is patents, which only have a finite lifespan. So if you actually invented something world changing, it’s not unexpected that you would only harvest a portion of the value, by design.
Private Information: Price discrimination is hard (people have heterogenous demand, it’s not like you can read off their willingness to pay off their forehead, and charge them that)
Investment/Uncertainty/Holdup: A lot of the value might involve risky endeavors, e.g. a new company or project. If an entrepreneur is starting something based on your idea, it’s hard to to charge them 50% or even 20% of their profit due to your invention, without collapsing the whole thing
Assignment of contribution: Ideas and their impact are probably really complicated, maybe involving combinations of existing ideas, so it’s hard to even attribute, much less collect payments on each component.
I think one point of writing up these shower thoughts, is pointing out that it is hard to know.
It’s better to have these ideas out there, than just deferring to Nordhaus.
The work of an economist or even Nordhaus, risks glorifying what are complex, ultimately ideological tinged views of the world. These are hard to be certain of, or even communicate to others with different worldviews.