Property rights issues involving plant genetic resources: implications of ownership for economic efficiency

Swanson, T. and Göschl, T. (2000) Property rights issues involving plant genetic resources: implications of ownership for economic efficiency. Ecological Economics, 32 (1). pp. 75-92.

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Abstract

The economic theory of property rights is applied to the issue of the conservation of plant genetic diversity, an issue often discussed in terms of benefit sharing, in order to demonstrate that the assignment of property rights is important for reasons of efficiency as well as for equity. Given the existence of transaction costs within an industry, the location of a property rights assignment is a crucial factor determining the incentives for efficient levels of investment at various levels of that industry. In the context of plant genetic resources, this means that property rights that are located at the retail end of the pharmaceutical and plant breeding industries may not have sufficient effect to generate the incentives to supply adequate amounts of plant genetic resources to the research and development sectors at the base of these industries

Item Type: Article
Author Affiliation: Department of Economics, School of Public Policy and CSERGE, University College London, Gower Street, London WCIE 6BT, UK
Subjects: Social Sciences > Agricultural Economics
Crop Improvement
Crop Improvement > Genetics/Genomics
Divisions: General
Depositing User: Mr B Krishnamurthy
Date Deposited: 14 Jul 2011 08:21
Last Modified: 14 Jul 2011 08:21
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(99)00072-5
URI: http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/2387

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