This book provides a unique set of empirical and theoretical analyses on the conditions, determinants and effects of the exchange and trade of technological knowledge. This work delivered by the research team lead by Bernard Guilhon shows that technological knowledge is more and more traded and exchanged in the market place. When and where contractual interactions are implemented by an institutional set-up which makes_the exchange better reliable for both parties. The new evidence provided by the book moreover makes it possible to appreciate the positive role of major knowledge rent externalities provided by the new quasi-markets for technological knowledge. Trade in technological knowledge leads in fact, as the book shows, to higher levels of division of labor, specialization and efficiency in the production and distribution of new technological knowledge. This dynamics is considered a part of a broader process where the generation of technological knowledge is itself becoming closer to the production of goods so that the division of labour among learning organization plays a growing role. Exchange of technological knowledge takes part because the conditions for appropriability are now far better that currently assumed by a large traditional literature. The analysis carried out through the book builds upon the notion of localized technological knowledge and suggests that the exchange of technological knowledge is not a spontaneous ‘atmospheric’ process.
