Research

Disclaimer: All opinions expressed in published (and unpublished) articles are my own (along with my coauthors, if applicable) and do not represent the views or policies of the U.S. Copyright Office or any other institution.

My personal research agendas explore the political economy of innovation, economic growth, and intellectual property using tools & frameworks like new institutional economics, public choice, market process economics, and (more experimentally) computational models.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  1. Safner, Ryan. (2025) “The Most Interesting Economist in History: Using an NCAA-Style Tournament Assignment to Teach the History of Economic Thought” Journal of Economics Teaching 10: 1-19

Published

  1. Safner, Ryan. (2023) “Honor Among Thieves: How 19th Century American Pirate Publishers Simulated Copyright Protection.” Economic Governance 24: 119-141

Published Preprint

  1. Tarko, Vlad and Ryan Safner. (2022) “International Regulatory Diversity Over 50 Years: Political Entrepreneurship within Fiscal Constraints.” Public Choice 193(1-2): 79-108

Published Preprint

  1. Safner, Ryan. (2021) “‘Public Good,’ or ‘Good for the Public?’ Political Entrepreneurship and the Public Funding of Scientific Research.” Journal of Private Enterprise 36(1): 743-771

Published Preprint

  1. Safner, Ryan. (2016) “Institutional Entrepreneurship, Wikipedia, and the Opportunity of the Commons.” Journal of Institutional Economics 12(4): 743-771

Published Preprint

  1. Safner, Ryan. (2016) “The Perils of Copyright Regulation.” Review of Austrian Economics 29: 127-137

Published Preprint

Government Publications

Lutes, Brent (Ed.). (2025) Identifying the Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Copyright Policy: Context and Direction for Economic Research.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2024) The Geography of Copyright Registrations.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2024) The Resilience of Creativity: An Examination of the COVID-19 Impact on Copyright-Reliant Industries and Their Subsequent Recovery.

Research in Progress

Below is my own independent research only. For research at the Copyright Office, see the Office of the Chief Economist

The Production of Increasing Returns: Physical Technology, Institutional Technology, and the Pitfalls of Production Functions. (with Santiago Gangotena)

“A Tale of Two Capitals: Modeling the Interaction between Ideas, Physical Capital, and Growth.” (with Santiago Gangotena)

Distributing Patronage: Censorship, Freedom of the Press, and Copyright in the English Transition from Natural State to Open Access Order

Pirate Thy Neighbor: The Protectionist Roots of U.S. Recognition of Foreign Copyrights

Kickstart My Art: Is Crowdfunding a Substitute or a Complement to Intellectual Property Laws?

Cryptocopyright? The Prospects of Protecting Intellectual Property on the Blockchain

The Network Origins of Economic Growth (with Santiago Gangotena)