VoxEU Talk

Collective cooperation: The phenomenon of open source

Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School talks to Viv Davies about his book, co-authored with Mark Schankerman, ‘The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development’. Lerner discusses the economic impact of open source software and its relationship with innovation and growth. Drawing from a new database, Lerner describes how open source and proprietary software interact and suggests how government policy should ensure that open source competes effectively with proprietary software. The interview was recorded by telephone on 14 February 2011.