Research
Disclaimer: All views expressed in published (and unpublished) articles are my own (along with my coauthors, if applicable) and do not represent the views of the U.S. Copyright Office or any other institution.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.
Below, you can find my research publications and research in progress, organized by publication type, along with tags to filter by relevant category of interest.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- Palmedo, Michael, Brent Lutes, and Ryan Safner. (2026) “AI Skill Demand and Employment Stratification in Copyright-Intensive Information Industries: Evidence from Job Postings and Industry-Level Employment Data.” Work and Occupations 53(3): 707-744
This paper examines how employer demand for workers skilled in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is associated with employment patterns in copyright-intensive industries within the U.S. information sector. Using panel data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators combined with data on AI-related job postings, we analyze how the relationship between employer demand for AI skills and employment levels varies across worker groups between 2018 and 2024. Furthermore, we document changes in this relationship following the widespread introduction of generative AI in late 2022. We find that employment in copyright-reliant information industries declined relative to other industries after late 2022, and that the association between AI-related job postings and employment is highly heterogeneous. Initial findings indicate that employment relationships were negative or statistically insignificant for workers who had not completed a four-year college degree, for women, and for the youngest and oldest age cohorts. A positive relationship existed for college educated workers, men, and prime-age workers, though this weakened in the periods after the introduction of generative AI. These findings provide early insights into how demand for generative AI skills may reshape labor market stratification within creative and information-intensive industries and underscore the importance of examining technological change in future research.
- 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
I describe an assignment for a history of economic thought (HET) course, “The Most Interesting Economist in History,” modeled on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) College Basketball Tournament. Economic thinkers are paired in head-to-head matchups for each era and students vote for those they find to be more “interesting” and must explain the reasoning behind their votes. This assignment promotes active learning and is a more engaging way to juggle complex themes with a large list of thinkers over a semester-long seminar.
- Safner, Ryan. (2023) “Honor Among Thieves: How 19th Century American Pirate Publishers Simulated Copyright Protection.” Economics of Governance 24: 119-141
From 1790 to 1891, the United States prevented foreign authors from obtaining domestic copyright protection, implicitly subsidizing a domestic reprinting industry. With foreign works a “free” and unprotected resource, American publishers created a system of voluntary norms, known as “trade courtesy” to create and enforce pseudo-property rights in uncopyrighted foreign works, simulating the effects of legal copyright protection. This paper analyzes this system using the Bloomington School’s institutional design principles to understand its effectiveness and pitfalls in managing the commons of unprotected foreign works in 19th Century America.
- Tarko, Vlad and Ryan Safner. (2022) “International Regulatory Diversity Over 50 Years: Political Entrepreneurship within Fiscal Constraints.” Public Choice 193(1-2): 79-108
Over the last 50 years, economic freedom in modern capitalist democracies has increased although the regulatory state has expanded considerably, resulting in the paradox of “freer markets, more rules” (Vogel, 1996). We provide a hierarchical cluster analysis of the policy trajectories of OECD countries over the last 50 years, as well as a theoretical framework that builds on Stigler’s (1971) theory of economic regulation. Our findings suggest that these developments are not the result of ideological narratives such as “neoliberalism,” but instead we confirm some claims from the “varieties of capitalism” and “regulatory capitalism” literatures using independent methods. Our approach is better able to explain the diversity of regulatory regimes across countries than existing approaches that focus on either national patterns or policy sectors, and we also provide a fuller account of government crowding-out and crowding-in effects across the entire structure of production.
- 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
Public goods are traditionally classified according to an exogenous, technological definition of possessing the characteristics of nonrivalry and nonexcludability. This paper takes a more endogenous approach, where goods are defined by the political purposes that specific actors have regarding these goods, and emerge through political entrepreneurship. I use government sponsorship of basic scientific research as a case study. Proponents argue that scientific research constitutes a public good requiring government assistance, but in fact, government provision of science is endogenous, and better explained by the political entrepreneurship involved in convincing the public of the superiority of political over private provision.
- Safner, Ryan. (2016) “Institutional Entrepreneurship, Wikipedia, and the Opportunity of the Commons.” Journal of Institutional Economics 12(4): 743-771
Copyright laws traditionally attempt to incentivize expression and minimize free rider problems through legal restrictions, at the expense of closing off access to cultural history. However, entrepreneurial changes to institutions and the creation of alternative governance structures can allow for spaces that facilitate expression without resorting to the copyright approach. Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, stands as a highly visible example of such institutional entrepreneurship, leveraging copyright law against its intended purpose. This paper uses the Bloomington School’s IAD framework to explain the success of Wikipedia’s alternative model of managing a common resource of free encyclopedia articles, and suggests a roadmap for understanding the role of institutional entrepreneurship in crafting alternative governance structures to foster expression.
- Safner, Ryan. (2016) “The Perils of Copyright Regulation.” Review of Austrian Economics 29(2): 121-137
The most robust framework for understanding the evolution and consequences of copyright statutes in the United States is the dynamics of interventionism. I apply the framework of Kirzner’s (1985) perils of regulation to the general revision of copyright law in 1976, and explore its effects on entrepreneurship and discovery processes. Critics of copyright commonly recognize the distortions of rent-seeking, but I emphasize the utility of interventionism to explain the“unsimulated” and the “stifled” discovery processes set in motion by copyright interventions, which use legal processes to allocate resources, and deter future discovery by raising transaction costs.
Government Publications
U.S. Copyright Office. (2026) The Characteristics of Authors Reflected in Copyright Registrations.
Lutes, Brent (Ed.). (2025) Identifying the Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Copyright Policy: Context and Direction for Economic Research.
The Copyright Office released Identifying the Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Copyright Policy, produced by a group of economic scholars discussing the economic issues at the intersection of artificial intelligence and copyright policy. The group engaged in several months of substantive discussions, consultation with technical experts, and research, culminating in a daylong roundtable event. The group’s goal was identifying the most consequential economic characteristics of AI and copyright and what factors may inform policy decisions. The roundtable discussion aimed to provide a structured and rigorous framework for considering economic evidence so that the broader economic research community can effectively answer specific questions and identify optimal policy choices. This publication serves as a platform for articulating the ideas expressed by participants as part of the roundtable. All principal contributors submitted written materials summarizing the group’s prior discussions on a particular topic, with editorial support provided by the Office of the Chief Economist. The many ideas and views discussed in this project do not necessarily represent the views of every roundtable participant or their respective institutions. The Copyright Office does not take a position on these ideas for the purposes of this project.
U.S. Copyright Office. (2024) The Geography of Copyright Registrations.
The U.S. Copyright Office has released a report, The Geography of Copyright Registrations. The study examines the geographic distribution of copyright claims registered by individuals and organizations within the United States. The purpose of the report is to better understand where the copyright system is used and how patterns of registrations differ across areas within the country. The report reveals: The majority of copyright registrations originate from a handful of large metropolitan areas. Approximately 40 percent of all copyright registrations originate from just five: New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Chicago. Within the United States, certain geographic areas specialize in different types of creative works. For example, registrants in the South register many copyrights for musical works, registrants in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states register many literary works, and registrants in California specialize in film and dramatic works. Some areas have a high volume of registrations simply because of their large populations. When controlling for population, numerous locations at the city level emerge where individuals, companies, or universities are registering high concentrations of creative works. This report uses data from copyright claims registered between 2009 and 2022. A forthcoming report will focus on the demographics of copyright registrations in the United States.
U.S. Copyright Office. (2024) The Resilience of Creativity: An Examination of the COVID-19 Impact on Copyright-Reliant Industries and Their Subsequent Recovery.
The U.S. Copyright Office has released The Resilience of Creativity: An Examination of the COVID-19 Impact on Copyright-Reliant Industries and Their Subsequent Recovery. The study examines the impact and subsequent recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of employment, revenues, and creative outputs in copyright-reliant industries. It uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census, and U.S. Copyright Office pertaining to eighteen industries that produce the types of works registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. The report reveals: As a whole, copyright-reliant industries experienced a substantial downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the effect was decidedly smaller than that on the broader U.S. economy. Copyright-reliant industries, as a whole, recovered from the pandemic-induced downturn substantially quicker than the broader U.S. economy. The pandemic impact on employees was substantially larger than the impact on copyright-reliant firms (which is consistent with the experience of non-copyright reliant industries). The pandemic effects were significantly varied among industries.
Book Chapters
Lutes, Brent, Michael Palmedo, and Ryan Safner. (2026) “The State of Inclusion and Diversity in Copyright” in Daryl Lim and Peter K Yu, eds, Inclusive Innovation in the Age of AI and Big Data, Oxford University Press.
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)
Economists often model the delicate relationship between production, innovation, and economic growth as a production function that exhibits increasing returns to scale (IRS). The existence of knowldge spillovers or learning by doing implies conclusions about the optimal use of protectionist trade and industrial policies that increase national welfare by reallocating productive resources in order to exploit IRS. We claim that all physical technologies, understood as recipes that produce a specified output from given inputs, exhibit constant returns to scale. Increasing returns to scale comes from institutions that enable entrepreneurial discovery and choice to switch between physical technologies. We examine several case studies of apparently successful infant industries and clarify the nature and economic relationships behind the phenomena of increasing returns and the limitations of existing models of production, we contribute a new understanding of research with applications to innovation, economic growth, and trade policy.
“A Tale of Two Capitals: Modeling the Interaction between Ideas, Physical Capital, and Growth” (with Santiago Gangotena)
This paper models the relationship between innovation and sustained economic growth through as being mediated by institutions that calibrate a ‘structure of technological production’ analogous to capital-based models of the structure of production. Our framework discusses two types of capital: physical capital and ethereal capital (productivity-enhancing ideas). We cast these two structures in a network, the structure of which is determined by the institutions of a society. Predictions derived from this model may resolve some puzzles in the history of economic growth, such as ancient inventions ‘far ahead of their time’ failing to stimulate sustained growth, the phenomena of simultaneous independent invention, and failures of technology transfers.
“The Patron’s Bargain: Towards a Comparative Political Economy of Copy-Protecting Institutions”
“Poisoning the Knowledge Commons? Wikipedia in the Age of Generative AI”
“Wikipedia as a Long-Enduring Commons-Governing Institution”
“The Post Office as Copyright Policeman? Newspaper Rates and the Mammoth Weeklies in 1840s America”
“An Agent-Based Model of Innovation by Lexical Metaphor”
“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”
“AI Model Collapse Risk with Endogenous Human Creative Supply: An Agent-Based Approach”
“The Network Origins of Economic Growth” (with Santiago Gangotena)