William Kingston
Biographic Data
| ID | 2314884 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William Kingston |
| GIVEN NAMES | William |
| FAMILY NAME | Kingston |
| SIGNATURE | KINGSTON W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Trinity College Dublin |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1959 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Correcting Ireland’s Over-Protection of Property
Rebalancing Distorted Science Policy
Rebalancing Distorted Science Policy William Kingston (bio) In an earlier article in Studies I discussed Ireland’s need for indigenous economic innovation, and what might be done about it.1 What follows focusses on related issues of excessive and wrongly directed expenditure on scientific research as a barrier to the achievement of this. After it became accepted in the 1950s that the policy of protecting infant industries had failed, there were s…
First aid for a badly injured patent system
An academic lifetime of research on patents for invention led to conviction of how unfit for purpose current international arrangements have become, and to the proposal of several reforms (Kingston, 2010). What follows is the result of further reflection on how poorly the modern world system fulfils the original intention of patents. It explains how this has come about and offers two new suggestions for improvement
Limited Liability
Limited Liability: Ireland’s Global Legacy William Kingston Limited liability allows sharing in ownership of a business without any responsibility for debts which that business may incur. The most that the investor can lose if it fails is the amount that the share in it has cost. Although the modern corporation depends absolutely upon it for its existence, this legal privilege is taken for granted, like the expectation that the sun will rise tomo…
Industrial Policy in Ireland
Industrial Policy in Ireland: Responding to Covid-19 and Brexit William Kingston It is clearly inevitable that the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit, the events which have so dominated in 2020, will transform Irish economic conditions in a fundamental way. The pandemic on its own is surely undermining globalisation in the form which successive Irish governments have enthusiastically embraced it. A key aspect of this has been the ability of global firm…
Making Sense of Britain's Strange ‘Brexit’ Parliament
Making Sense of Britain’s Strange ‘Brexit’ Parliament William Kingston English parliaments have been known by many names, including ‘Reformation,’ ‘Cavalier,’ Long’ and ‘Rump.’ The one which has just been dissolved will surely have the title ‘Brexit’, because it was so dominated by the issue of leaving the European Union. Its failure to settle this reflects a mismatch between direct democracy and representative democracy, which can be understood …
How Capitalism Destroyed Itself
Economics and Finance, Innovations and Technology
Examining the Effectiveness of Support for UK Wave Energy Innovation since 2000. Lost at Sea or a New Wave of Innovation
This report, funded by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the International Public Policy Institute, has the great merit of being a study of innovation failure, rather than success, and the number of useful lessons it contains is consequently all the greater. From a massive database, it estimates that, between 2000 and 2017, the UK provided close to half a billion pounds of public sector funding to encourage the private sec…
Innovation after Brexit
Brexit is intended to return autonomy for law-making to the UK Parliament, and this opportunity could be used to improve intellectual property laws. These were originally drafted to support innovation, but like other laws of property they were captured by interests. The result is that their original function has been far surpassed in economic importance by their use for moving corporate profits to and through tax havens for tax evasion and avoida…
Patent pledges
This book deals with a comparatively new development in the use of patents by which firms voluntarily give up some of their exclusive rights through what are known as ‘patent pledges.’ It is a comp
Restoring the primacy of technological innovation
The industrial revolution depended upon a system of individual property rights which was unusually capable of forcing self-interest to serve the public good as well. This system led to unprecedented growth of wealth, primarily because it encouraged technological innovation. Over time, however, the laws of property (notably those relating to the corporation and to information protection) were captured by those who could benefit from them. In parti…
Genius’, ‘faction’ and rescuing intellectual property rights
Intellectual property rights have been driven relentlessly towards a unitary system for the entire world, originally through passive copying of flawed United States arrangements, but more recently as a result of determined lobbying by American interests. But diversity and competition have the same beneficial potential for institutions themselves as they have for the economic development they can foster or hinder. A financial dimension in measurin…
Streptomycin, Schatz v. Waksman, and the Balance of Credit for Discovery
A recent article in Nature, arguing that “the misallocation of credit is endemic in science,” used Selman Waksman as an illustration, claiming that the true discoverer of streptomycin was one of his graduate students. The article received wide publicity and seriously damaged Waksman's great reputation. What actually happened was that the success of penicillin stimulated Merck to fund research by Waksman, a soil scientist, into the collection of a…
A Running Repair for the Civil Service
A spectre is haunting the world - the spectre of global capitalism
Property Rights and the Making of Christendom
The benefits of efficient laws of property are obtained by altruism in their formulation, which is able to deal with self-interest in action within them
The Case for a “Principality of Ulster
Northern Ireland—if Reason Fails
Northern Ireland—the Elements of a Solution
The Case of Assistant Curates
Northern Ireland—the Elements of a Solution
Streptomycin, Schatz v. Waksman, and the Balance of Credit for Discovery
A recent article in Nature, arguing that “the misallocation of credit is endemic in science,” used Selman Waksman as an illustration, claiming that the true discoverer of streptomycin was one of his graduate students. The article received wide publicity and seriously damaged Waksman's great reputation. What actually happened was that the success of penicillin stimulated Merck to fund research by Waksman, a soil scientist, into the collection of a…
A Running Repair for the Civil Service
The Case for a “Principality of Ulster
The Case of Assistant Curates
Northern Ireland—the Elements of a Solution
Northern Ireland—if Reason Fails
The Case for a “Principality of Ulster
Property Rights and the Making of Christendom
The benefits of efficient laws of property are obtained by altruism in their formulation, which is able to deal with self-interest in action within them
A spectre is haunting the world - the spectre of global capitalism
A Running Repair for the Civil Service
Streptomycin, Schatz v. Waksman, and the Balance of Credit for Discovery
A recent article in Nature, arguing that “the misallocation of credit is endemic in science,” used Selman Waksman as an illustration, claiming that the true discoverer of streptomycin was one of his graduate students. The article received wide publicity and seriously damaged Waksman's great reputation. What actually happened was that the success of penicillin stimulated Merck to fund research by Waksman, a soil scientist, into the collection of a…
Genius’, ‘faction’ and rescuing intellectual property rights
Intellectual property rights have been driven relentlessly towards a unitary system for the entire world, originally through passive copying of flawed United States arrangements, but more recently as a result of determined lobbying by American interests. But diversity and competition have the same beneficial potential for institutions themselves as they have for the economic development they can foster or hinder. A financial dimension in measurin…
Restoring the primacy of technological innovation
The industrial revolution depended upon a system of individual property rights which was unusually capable of forcing self-interest to serve the public good as well. This system led to unprecedented growth of wealth, primarily because it encouraged technological innovation. Over time, however, the laws of property (notably those relating to the corporation and to information protection) were captured by those who could benefit from them. In parti…
Innovation after Brexit
Brexit is intended to return autonomy for law-making to the UK Parliament, and this opportunity could be used to improve intellectual property laws. These were originally drafted to support innovation, but like other laws of property they were captured by interests. The result is that their original function has been far surpassed in economic importance by their use for moving corporate profits to and through tax havens for tax evasion and avoida…
Patent pledges
This book deals with a comparatively new development in the use of patents by which firms voluntarily give up some of their exclusive rights through what are known as ‘patent pledges.’ It is a comp
How Capitalism Destroyed Itself
Economics and Finance, Innovations and Technology
Examining the Effectiveness of Support for UK Wave Energy Innovation since 2000. Lost at Sea or a New Wave of Innovation
This report, funded by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the International Public Policy Institute, has the great merit of being a study of innovation failure, rather than success, and the number of useful lessons it contains is consequently all the greater. From a massive database, it estimates that, between 2000 and 2017, the UK provided close to half a billion pounds of public sector funding to encourage the private sec…
Making Sense of Britain's Strange ‘Brexit’ Parliament
Making Sense of Britain’s Strange ‘Brexit’ Parliament William Kingston English parliaments have been known by many names, including ‘Reformation,’ ‘Cavalier,’ Long’ and ‘Rump.’ The one which has just been dissolved will surely have the title ‘Brexit’, because it was so dominated by the issue of leaving the European Union. Its failure to settle this reflects a mismatch between direct democracy and representative democracy, which can be understood …
Limited Liability
Limited Liability: Ireland’s Global Legacy William Kingston Limited liability allows sharing in ownership of a business without any responsibility for debts which that business may incur. The most that the investor can lose if it fails is the amount that the share in it has cost. Although the modern corporation depends absolutely upon it for its existence, this legal privilege is taken for granted, like the expectation that the sun will rise tomo…
Industrial Policy in Ireland
Industrial Policy in Ireland: Responding to Covid-19 and Brexit William Kingston It is clearly inevitable that the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit, the events which have so dominated in 2020, will transform Irish economic conditions in a fundamental way. The pandemic on its own is surely undermining globalisation in the form which successive Irish governments have enthusiastically embraced it. A key aspect of this has been the ability of global firm…
Rebalancing Distorted Science Policy
Rebalancing Distorted Science Policy William Kingston (bio) In an earlier article in Studies I discussed Ireland’s need for indigenous economic innovation, and what might be done about it.1 What follows focusses on related issues of excessive and wrongly directed expenditure on scientific research as a barrier to the achievement of this. After it became accepted in the 1950s that the policy of protecting infant industries had failed, there were s…
First aid for a badly injured patent system
An academic lifetime of research on patents for invention led to conviction of how unfit for purpose current international arrangements have become, and to the proposal of several reforms (Kingston, 2010). What follows is the result of further reflection on how poorly the modern world system fulfils the original intention of patents. It explains how this has come about and offers two new suggestions for improvement
Correcting Ireland’s Over-Protection of Property
Political science (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Economics (13 works) · Politics (11 works) · Business (10 works) · Law and economics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · History (5 works)