Knowledge and Technology as Public Goods

The features of knowledge and technology as factors of modern economic development have been analyzed, as well as their essential characteristics in the public goods theory. It has been proven that knowledge and the results of fundamental scientific research are characterized by the properties of non-competitiveness and indivisibility in consumption, as their consumption by one subject does not reduce their consumption by others. It is substantiated that knowledge of applied nature and the results of applied research lose the properties of public goods due to the recording of intellectual property rights. The expenditure budget on scientific research in some countries has been analyzed. It has been found out that constant reduction of the R&D expenditures share in the GDP and significant reduction of fundamental research funding preserves Ukraine’s scientific and technological lag behind the world’s leading countries and makes rapid technological renewal of the domestic economy impossible. It has been found out that economic entities receive the innovation rent at the first lifecycle phase of the technology, given the existence of a mechanism for patenting research and development results and the monopoly rights of the owners of new technologies for their exclusive use. However, the monopoly on new technologies is not an absolute one due to the threat of information leakage in the process of interaction with potential buyers and copying or imitation of new products or new processes at the stage of getting them into actual practical use. It has also been proven that at the accelerated diffusion phase, such technologies acquire the features of a mixed public good.