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 | The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
Author: Michael Heller
Publisher: Basic Books
Binding: Hardcover
Released: 2008-07-07
Sales Rank: 5944
ISBN: 0465029167
Edition:
Cover
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 2008-07-31 - Changes the way we see the world
Every once in a while a gifted academic writes a book about a technical subject that changes the way the lay public sees the world. Michael Heller has written such a book. The Gridlock Economy illuminates by giving language to a phenomena that is all around us but we've had no word for. The stories he tells are chilling and heart wrenching. But he gives us hope as well. By describing gridlock and why it happens - the word he coins is "anticommons" - Professor Heller lead the way to creative problem solving. This book is a must read for policy makers in all fields.
2008-07-28 - Heller's Gridlock
Michael Heller's Gridlock Economy is this year's must-read popular economics book. As reviewers at Slate, Time, and elsewhere have noted, Heller's book compares well to 2005's mega-hit Freakonomics, as well as Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, James Surowiecki's (of The New Yorker) The Wisdom of Crowds, and Chris Anderson's The Long Tail.
Gridlock Economy shares two important characteristics with those books: a compelling central organizing idea and great writing. The central organizing idea is that "too much ownership" can stifle economic innovation. By "too much ownership," Heller is referring to the kind of situation that arises with increasing frequency across all the key sectors of the new economy including biotechnology, software, computer hardware, music, movies, and finance. Our efforts to promote innovation by granting patents and copyrights (and other government-sponsored forms of intellectual property protection) can often come back to bite us.
Heller provides dozens of interesting examples across the entire range of the new economy. His lead example involves the difficulties that a researcher at a big drug company is having pursuing a promising cure for Alzheimers. To make headway, the researcher needs to purchase or license a host of patents held by a not small number of competitors. Our current patent system gives --for better and, in this case, for worse-- gives each patent holder involved the capacity to hold up this important research. If we're lucky an entrepreneurial "patent bundler" will come along and piece together the necessary patents and licenses. Meanwhile, we're stuck in Heller's gridlock.
2008-07-24 - Essential reading for IP scholars
I teach university courses on Copyright and Intellectual Property. In the past, I've assigned Heller's Science article explaining how the "anticommons" has prevented new and important pharmaceuticals from being developed. However, this book offers an infinitely more readable, entertaining, and nuanced argument. I will certainly be adding it to my syllabus this Fall, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading the works of Lessig, Gladwell, and the like.
 2008-07-23 - The Gridlock Economy
I'll give you an example of a gridlocked economy. How about eliteist university presses who think their e-books are worth double the price of most others. Ironic to say the least.
 2008-07-20 - Ownership Gone Awry
This book arrives at a very auspicious moment. The key concept is that property ownership is not an unmitigated good, and, worse yet, it can lead to economic gridlock and underutilization of resources. In a rising economy, with property values going upward, this book would probably not sell too many copies; but in a declining market, with many homeowners stuck with adjustable mortgages greater than the value of their homes, the downside of property ownership is now more manifest.
Michael Heller teaches real estate law at Columbia University Law School and he is considered one of the foremost authorities on property law. In the current work, he discusses what he calls the tragedy of the anticommuns. The expression "tragedy of the commons" goes back as far as Aristotle, referring to the absence of individual property rights. Heller's "tragedy of the anticommons" refers to uncontrolled proliferation of individual rights, all clamoring for their own stake with total disregard for the common good. He correctly claims that too many property rights can strangle the market. This is an unpopular and inconvenient idea that runs counter to one of the most fundamental beliefs of capitalism.
Heller argues that property rights create gatekeepers. A gatekeeper is someone whose permission we need to get something done. Modern society is complex, and with more and more gatekeepers, the chances of getting things done becomes more difficult all the time. This sounds like commonsense, and economists have traditionally called this the burden of transaction costs. Heller's take on this issue is new and refreshing in that he creates a new vocabulary in describing it.
One of the examples Heller uses to illustrate his thesis is the gridlock that is taking place in the pharmaceutical industry. Many important drugs remain off the market because there are too many owners of patents all claiming rights to future profits.
Another example is the current mortgage crisis. In the old days when banks made loans and kept them on their books until they were paid off, ownership was clear and simple. Now, after loans have been repackaged and sold to investors many times over, ownership is multiple and no longer clear, making it virtually impossible to restructure them.
Although possibly trendy and definitely contrarian, this book does not give any solutions to the problem, other than understanding them better. Property rights are the cornerstone of capitalism as economists and philosophers since Adam Smith have argued, and as Heller himself argues. However, sometimes respecting everyone's rights strangles the economy and something needs to be done for the common good. This book is an interesting discussion of this dilemma.
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