For a decade, economists have been fascinated by the phenomenon of open source software (OSS). OSS is marked by free access to the software and its source code. It is developed in a public, collaborative manner by thousands of non-paid volunteers as well as profit seeking firms. Today, OSS is...

We analyze the characteristics of new businesses in the German ICT industry, distinguishing them based on their choice between two IPR regimes: open source software (OSS) or closed source software (CSS). The share of new firms with an OSS-based business model has increased considerably over the...

For a decade, economists have been fascinated by the phenomenon of open source software (OSS). OSS is marked by free access to the software and its source code. It is developed in a public, collaborative manner by thousands of non-paid volunteers as well as profit seeking firms. Today, OSS is...

Software is a good with very special economic characteristics. Taking a general definition of software as its starting-point, this article systematically elaborates the central qualities of the commodity which have implications for its production and cost structure, the demand, the...

Replaced by paper 575.03 in this series. Please change the 505.02 to 575.03 in your browser address bar to go to the new page, which has the download link.

This document contains lecture notes for a first year graduate course in econometrics, with coverage of basic topics such as OLS and hypothesis testing, through maximum likelihood and GMM, nonlinear models, time series, panel data, Bayesian methods, simulation-based methods, and other topics....

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...

Software is a good with very special economic characteristics. Taking a general definition of software as its starting-point, this article   systematically elaborates the central qualities of the commodity which have implications for its production and cost structure, the demand, the...