T. Swanson et T. Goschl, Property rights issues involving plant genetic resources: implications of owner-ship for economic efficiency, ECOL ECON, 32(1), 2000, pp. 75-92
The economic theory of property rights is applied to the issue of the conse
rvation of plant genetic diversity, an issue often discussed in terms of be
nefit sharing, in order to demonstrate that the assignment of property righ
ts is important for reasons of efficiency as well as for equity. Given the
existence of transaction costs within an industry, the location of a proper
ty rights assignment is a crucial factor determining the incentives for eff
icient levels of investment at various levels of that industry. In the cont
ext of plant genetic resources, this means that property rights that are lo
cated at the retail end of the pharmaceutical and plant breeding industries
may not have sufficient effect to generate the incentives to supply adequa
te amounts of plant genetic resources to the research and development secto
rs at the base of these industries. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All righ
ts reserved.