Prize for Climate Change

During the last decade law-and-economics scholars have expressed a great deal of interest in the ability of private or public prizes to induce research into important innovations.  See Steve Shavell and Tanguy van Ypersele, "Rewards Versus Intellectual Property Rights," 44 J. Law & Econ. 525 (2001) and the wonderful account of John Harrison's clocks in Dava Sobel, Longitude (1996).  John Tierney's "Findings" column in today's "Science Times" section of The New York Times, see here, has a report of a new prize.  Richard Branson, the owner of the Virgin companies, has offered $25 million to whoever can devise a means of removing one billion tons per year of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

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