{{short description|American economist}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = James Bessen | birth_date = 1950 | occupation = Executive Director of the Technology & Policy Research Initiative, Lecturer | employer = [[Boston University School of Law]] }}
'''James Bessen''' (born 1950) is an economist who has been a lecturer at [[Boston University School of Law]] since 2004.<ref>{{cite web |title=James Bessen {{!}} School of Law |url=https://www.bu.edu/law/faculty/profiles/bios/part-time/bessen.shtml |website=www.bu.edu}}</ref> He is presently best known for his data-led research concerning software and innovation.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2P-eWUUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao |website=Google Scholar |title=publication record}}</ref> He has also demonstrated the diverse impacts of automation on employment and wages.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bessen |first1=James |title=Automation and jobs: when technology boosts employment |journal=Economic Policy |date=December 2019 |volume=34 |issue=100 |pages=589–626 |doi=10.1093/epolic/eiaa001 |url=https://academic.oup.com/economicpolicy/article-abstract/34/100/589/5709812|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In more recent work, he has established links between investment in software and [[market dominance]] in a number of sectors.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bessen |first1=James |title=The New Goliaths How Corporations Use Software to Dominate Industries, Kill Innovation, and Undermine Regulation |date=2022 |publisher=Yale University Press |doi=10.12987/9780300265026 |isbn=978-0-300-26502-6 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.12987/9780300265026/html}}</ref> Before entering academia professionally, Bessen was previously a software developer and CEO of Bestinfo, a software company.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Admin |date=2015-04-02 |title=Barriers to innovations crush U.S. entrepreneurship |url=http://asiatimes.com/2015/04/barriers-to-innovations-crush-us-entrepreneurship/ |access-date=2023-10-17 |website=Asia Times |language=en-US}}</ref> Bessen was also a Fellow at the [[Berkman Center for Internet and Society]].<ref>"Bestinfo: WYSIWYG on an IBM PC," Seybold Report on Publishing Systems, 14(4) pp. 15-23.</ref>
[[File:James Bessen.jpeg|thumb|Bessen in 2010]]Bessen researches the economics of innovation, including patents and economic history. He has written about [[Software patent debate|software patents]] with [[Eric Maskin]], arguing that they might inhibit [[innovation]] rather than stimulate progress.<ref>[http://www.researchoninnovation.org/patent.pdf Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation], by James Bessen and Eric Maskin, Discussion paper, MIT (2000), published in ''[[The RAND Journal of Economics]]'', Volume 40, Issue 4, pages 611–635, Winter 2009</ref> With Michael J. Meurer, he wrote ''Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk''<ref>[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8634.html Princeton University Press (2008)]</ref> as well as papers on [[patent trolls]].<ref>[https://ssrn.com/abstract=2091210 "The Direct Costs from NPE Disputes," Cornell Law Review, v. 99 (2014)] [https://ssrn.com/abstract=1982139 "The Private and Social Costs of Patent Trolls," Regulation, 34(4), Winter 2011-12]</ref> His book ''Learning by Doing: The Real Connection Between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth''<ref>[https://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300195668 Yale University Press (2015)]</ref> argues that major new technologies require new skills and knowledge that are slow and difficult to develop, affecting jobs and wages.
Bessen developed the first [[WYSIWYG]] [[desktop publishing]] program at a community newspaper in [[Philadelphia]] in 1983.<ref>"What You See Is Pretty Close to What You Get: New h&j, pagination program for IBM PC," Seybold Report on Publishing Systems, 13(10), February 13, 1984, pp. 21-2.</ref> He established and ran a company, Bestinfo, to sell that program commercially. In 1993, Bestinfo was sold to [[Intergraph]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Test Story |url=http://scripting.com/seybold/stories/970206.html |website=scripting.com}}</ref>
He graduated from [[Harvard University]] in 1972.<ref>{{cite web |title=James Bessen {{!}} School of Law |url=https://www.bu.edu/law/profile/james-bessen/ |website=www.bu.edu}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist|30em}}
==External links== * {{cite web|title=Official website |website= Research on Innovation |url=http://www.researchoninnovation.org/}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bessen, James}} [[Category:1958 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:21st-century American economists]] [[Category:Boston University School of Law faculty]] [[Category:American chief executives in technology]] [[Category:Harvard University alumni]]
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