James Bessen

James Bessen (born 1950) is an economist who has been a lecturer at Boston University School of Law since 2004,.

[3] In more recent work, he has established links between investment in software and market dominance in a number of sectors.

He has written about software patents with Eric Maskin, arguing that they might inhibit innovation rather than stimulate progress.

[9] His book Learning by Doing: The Real Connection Between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth[10] 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.