NBER Publications by Alfonso Gambardella

We study the production of knowledge when many researchers or inventors are involved, in a setting where tensions can arise between individual public and private contributions. We first show that without some kind of coordination, production of the public knowledge good (science or research software or database) is sub-optimal. Then we demonstrate that if "lead" researchers are able to establish a norm of contribution to the public good, a better outcome can be achieved, and we show that the General Public License (GPL) used in the provision of open source software is one of such mechanisms. Our results are then applied to the specific setting where the knowledge being produced is software or a database that will be used by academic researchers and possibly by private firms, using as an ex...

The spectacular growth of the software industry in some non-G7 economies has aroused both interest and concern. This paper addresses two sets of inter-related issues. First, we explore the determinants of these successful stories. We then touch upon the broader question of what lessons, if any, can be drawn from for economic development more generally. Finally, examining the long term implications of offshoring of software, we conclude that it is unlikely to pose a long term threat to American technological leadership. Instead, the U.S. economy will broadly benefit from the growth of new software producing regions. The U.S. technological leadership rests in part upon the continued position of the U.S. as the primary destination for highly trained and skilled scientists and engineers from t...