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Publications
Publications
  • 2010
  • Book

The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

By: Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

Discussions of the economic impact of open source software often generate more heat than light. Advocates passionately assert the benefits of open source, while critics decry its effects. Missing from the debate is rigorous economic analysis and systematic microeconomic evidence of the impact of open source on consumers, firms, and economic growth in general. This book fills that gap. In The Comingled Code, Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman, drawing on a new, large-scale database, show that open source and proprietary software interact in sometimes unexpected ways and discuss the policy implications of these findings. The new data (from a range of countries in varying stages of development) documents the mixing of open source and proprietary software: firms sell proprietary software while contributing to open source, and users extensively mix and match the two. Lerner and Schankerman examine the ways in which software differs from other technologies in promoting economic development, what motivates individuals and firms to contribute to open source projects, how developers and users view the tradeoffs between the two kinds of software, and how government policies can ensure that open source competes effectively with proprietary software and contributes to economic growth.

Keywords

Development Economics; Economic Growth; Policy; Government And Politics; Open Source Distribution; Software

Citation

Lerner, Josh, and Mark Schankerman. The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development. MIT Press, 2010.
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About The Author

Josh Lerner

Entrepreneurial Management
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More from the Authors

    • 2020
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    Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers

    By: Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend and Yulia Zhestkova
    • Summer 2020
    • Journal of Economic Perspectives

    Venture Capital's Role in Financing Innovation: What We Know and How Much We Still Need to Learn

    By: Josh Lerner and Ramana Nanda
    • 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Two Case Studies on the Financing of Forest Conservation

    By: Andrew Baxter, Connor Cash, Josh Lerner and Ratnika Prasad
More from the Authors
  • Fencing Off Silicon Valley: Cross-Border Venture Capital and Technology Spillovers By: Ufuk Akcigit, Sina T. Ates, Josh Lerner, Richard Townsend and Yulia Zhestkova
  • Venture Capital's Role in Financing Innovation: What We Know and How Much We Still Need to Learn By: Josh Lerner and Ramana Nanda
  • Two Case Studies on the Financing of Forest Conservation By: Andrew Baxter, Connor Cash, Josh Lerner and Ratnika Prasad
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