Should governments accept the principle of devoting a proportion of their resources to
funding basic research? From the standpoint of economics, science should be considered
as a public good and for that reason it should be protected from market forces. This
article tries to show that this result can only be maintained at the price of abandoning
arguments traditionally deployed by economists themselves. It entails a complete reversal of our habitual ways of thinking about public goods. In order to bring this reversal
about, this article draws on the central results obtained by the anthropology and
sociology of science and technology over the past several years. Science is a public good,
not because of its intrinsic properties but because it is a source of diversity and flexibility.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Arthur, B.W.1989. Competing technologies, increasing returns and lock-in by historical events. The Economics Journal99:116-31.
2.
Biagioli, Mario.1990. Galileo's system of patronage. History of Science28:1-62.
3.
Callon, Michel.1992. The dynamics of techno-economic networks. In Technological change and company strategies, edited by R. Coombs, P. Saviotti, and V. Walsh, 72-102. London: Academic Press.
4.
—. 1993. Variety and irreversibility in networks of technique conception and adoption. In Technology and the wealth of nations, edited by Dominique Foray and Christopher Freeman, 232- 68. London: Francis Pinter.
5.
—. 1994. Four models for the dynamics of science. In Handbook of science, technology and society, edited by J. C. Petersen, G. E. Markle, S. Jasanoff, and T. Pinch.Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
6.
Callon, Michel, John Law , and Arie Rip, eds. 1986. Mapping the dynamics of science and technology. Sociology of science in the real world. London: Macmillan.
7.
Cambrosio, Alberto.1988. "Going monoclonal": Art, science and magic in the day-to-day use of hybridoma technology. Social Problems35:244-60.
8.
Cambrosio, Alberto, and Peter Keating.1994. Monoclonal antibodies: From local to extended networks. Unpublished manuscript.
9.
Collins, Harry.1974. The TEA set: Tacit knowledge and scientific networks. Science Studies4:165-86.
10.
—. 1990. Artificial experts: Social knowledge and intelligent machines . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
11.
Comes, R., and T. Sandler.1986. The theory of externalities, public goods and club goods. Cambridge: Cambndge University Press.
12.
Cowan, R.1991. Tortoises and hares: Choice among technologies of unknown merit. Economic Journal101:801-14.
13.
Dasgupta, Partha, and Paul A. David.1992. Toward a new economics of science. Paper presented at the Center for Economic Policy Research Conference on the Role of Technology in Economics: A Conference in Honor of Nathan Rosenberg , 9 November, at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
14.
David, Paul A.1984. Clio and the economics of QWERTY. American Economic Review75:332-37.
15.
Dosi, Giovanni, C. Freeman , R. Nelson, G. Silverberg, and L. Soete, eds.1988. Technical change and economic theory. London: Francis Pinter.
16.
Dyson, Freeman J.1992. Revolution in astronomy. Faculty lecture, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey .
17.
Etzkowitz, Henry, and Loïs Peters.1991. Profiting from knowledge: Organizational innovations and the evolution of academic norms. Minerva29:133-66.
18.
Foray, Dominique.1994. Les brevets dans la nouvelle économie de l'innovation: les rôles des droits de propriété intellectuelle. Science Technologie Industrie, OCDE, 14, 127-161.
19.
Friedman, Robert.1989. Appropriating the weather. Wilhem Bjerknes and the construction of modern meteorology. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
20.
Fuller, Steve.1993. Knowledge as product and property. In The culture and power of knowledge, edited by Nico Stehr and Richard Ericson, 157-90. Berlin : Walter de Guyter.
21.
Galison, Peter.1987. How experiments end. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22.
Geertz, Clifford.1986. The uses of diversity. Tanner Lectures on Human Values VII. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
23.
Haraway, Donna J.1994. A game of cat's cradle: Science studies, feminist theory, cultural studies. Configurations2:59-71.
24.
Joly, Pierre-Benoît, and Chantal Ducos.1993. Les artifices du vivant: Stratégies d'innovation dans l'industrie des semences. IRA-Economica, Paris: Economica.
25.
Kabla, Isabelle.1993. Le rôle du brevet dans les politiques publiques de l'innovation . Aspects théoriques. Unpublished manuscript.
26.
Knorr-Cetina, Karin.1992. The couch, the cathedral and the laboratory: On the relationships between experiment and laboratory in science. In Science as practice and culture, edited by Andrew Pickering , 113-38. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
27.
Latour, Bruno.1987. Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
28.
Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar.1979. Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
29.
Lundvall, B. A., ed. 1992. National systems of innovation. London: Belhaven.
30.
Machlup, F.1984. Knowledge: Its creation, distribution, and economic significance. Vol. 3, The economics of information and human capital. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
31.
Mullins, N.C.1972. The development of a scientific specialty: The phage group and the origins of molecular biology. Minerva10:51-82.
32.
Nelson, R. R., ed. 1992. National innovation systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
33.
Nelson, Richard R., and Gavin Wright.1992. The rise and fall of American technological leadership: The postwar era in historical perspective. Journal of Economic Literature30:1931-64.
34.
Nouchi, Franck.1992. Les chercheurs français en génétique moléculaire offrent leurs découvertes à la communauté scientifique internationale. Le Monde, 29 October, 1.
35.
O'Connell, Joseph.1993. Metrology: The creation of universality by the circulation of particulars. Social Studies of Science23:129-73.
36.
Pickering, Andrew. Forthcoming. The mangle of practice. American Journal of Sociology.
37.
Rawls, J.1972. A theory of justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
38.
Romer, Paul M.1992. Two strategies for economic development: Using ideas and producing ideas. In Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics, edited by L. Summers and S. Shah.Washington, DC: World Bank Press.
39.
—. 1993. Implementing a national technology strategy with self-organizing industry investment boards. Brooking Papers: Microeconomics2:345-99.
40.
Rouse, Joseph.1993. What are cultural studies of scientific knowledge? Configurations1:1-22.
41.
Schaffer, Simon.1992. Where experiments end: Table-top trials in Victorian astronomy ." Unpublished manuscript.
42.
Star, Susan Leigh, and James R. Griesemer.1989. Institutional ecology, translations and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science19:387-420.
43.
Teece, D.J.1988. Technological change and the nature of the firm. In Technical change and economic theory, edited by G. Dosi, C. Freeman, R. Nelson, G. Silverberg , and L. Soete, 256-81. London : Macmillan.
44.
Tirole, Jean.1989. The theory of industrial organization. Cambridge: MIT Press.
45.
Weitzman, X.1992. On diversity. Quarterly Journal of Economics107: 363-405.
46.
Wise, Norton.1992. Mediations: Enlightenment balancing acts, or the technologies of rationalism. In World changes: Thomas Kuhn and the nature of science, edited by Paul Horwitch, 207-56. Cambridge : MIT Press.
