Intellectual Property and Market Structure in Agriculture

Gordon Rausser, Suzanne Scotchmer and Leo Simon

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: In the past several years, the seed industry worldwide has been dramatically restructured, mostly through mergers and acquisitions. We argue that the restructuring has been technologically driven, and has also resulted in the transformation of several chemical conglomerates into life-sciences firms. We discuss why the restructuring has mostly occurred through mergers rather than contractual relationships such as licensing, and investigate its efficiency implications, both as it concerns anticompetitive effects and the joint use of complementary assets.

Keywords: agriculture; biotechnology; breeding; intellectual property; seed industry; Social and Behavioral Sciences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-04-13
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Working Paper: Intellectual Property and Market Structure in Agriculture (1999)
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