Knowledge and Competitive Advantage: The Coevolution of Firms, Technology, and National Institutions

This is a highly academic book -- one that I read in getting my PhD -- and hence is not an easy book for a casual historian student to read. A reader should have an interest (or a grounding) in sociology or organzational theory. However, if you make the effort to read Murmann you will develop an excellent understanding of how industries and nations evolve, and how the surrounding institutions (universities and patent laws) are an important contributor to economic development. So for the right reader it is a superb book. I read a copy taken out of the library and liked it so much that I bought a copy for my bookshelf.

This book well deserves the $10,000 prize which the Schumpeter Society awarded it. It throws a brilliant new light on the development of one of the key factors shaping the modern business world, intellectual property. As just one example, the first synthetic dyes were invented and innovated in England, yet within 40 years, German firms held 95% of the world market for them. Murmann explains how much this owed to the way the Germans gave their firms a level of patent protection in 1877 which was not matched in Britain until 1905, by which time it was too late.