Lecture Objective: Students are able to identify incentives and factors that increase the production of ideas, and list the costs and benefits of using patents, prizes, and subsidies to increase idea creation.
The lesson incorporates a number of MRU’s videos about the economics of ideas from our Principles of Macroeconomics video course, as well as a TED-talk on the topic. We also mix in discussion prompts, exercises, practice questions, graphs and charts, and pre- and post-class assignments. Finally, we provide supplementary resources such as additional data sources, relevant articles and blog posts, a few episodes of Planet Money, and even an interview with Robert Solow himself.
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What is Marginal Revolution University (MRU)?
Many of us can remember our first great economics teacher who fundamentally changed how we see the world. At MRU, we try and deliver that experience to millions worldwide through video.
Founded as a nonprofit in 2012 by George Mason University economics professors Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, MRU is building the world’s largest online library of free economics education videos -- currently weighing in at more than 800 videos.