The study of policy discourse comprises actor-centered and content-oriented approaches. We attempt to close the gap between the two kinds of approaches by introducing a new methodology for the analysis of political discourse called Discourse Network Analysis. It is based on social network...

The economic characteristics of software and transaction costs explain, why closed source and open source software co-exist. It is about the efficient use of a non- and anti-scarce resource. But because of ex-post transaction costs that lead to information asymmetries, some property rights...

There is considerable debate regarding the use of intellectual property rights (IPR) to spur innovation in the software industry. In this paper we focus on the choice of intellectual property right regimes and industry growth. We begin by developing a growth optimal mixture of open source and...

Anfang Juli 2005 hat das Europäische Parlament die Softwarepatentrichtlinie zurückgewiesen. Nach welchen Regeln werden computerimplementierte Erfindungen derzeit behandelt? Welche Folgen hat die Ablehnung der Richtlinie für die zukünftige Behandlung von Software-Entwicklungen?