Associate Professor in Economics and Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose of the University College London (IIPP-UCL)
Associated with: CONICET, Argentina’s national research council and at the COSTECH lab, Université de Technologie de Compiègne.
Actively adivising policymakers, parlamentarians and competition authorities in the Americas and Europe.
@CeciliaRikap // c.rikap@ucl.ac.uk
What's new?
Google and Amazon are positioning themselves to steer and even control an ecological transition fit for their purposes. We find that their strategy relies on combining dressed up narratives with products (including digital services) that promote individual actions while Big Tech companies exclusively retain knowledge that provides a systemic view of the planet.
Spoiler alert, así termina mi capítulo en el nuevo libro de Alejandro Bercovich: El Estado que le conviene a la Argentina Tecno es un Estado incapaz, mutilado y empobrecido. Un Estado que erradica la investigación pública lo cual favorece la dependencia del financiamiento privado -condicionado y predatorio- de la ciencia y tecnología. Un Estado que no regula los mercados, mientras Mercado Libre dicta las condiciones de compra y venta del mercado más grande del país. Un Estado que cobra menos impuestos a los que más tienen mientras dejar el camino libre para que las plataformas cobren comisiones que son, en efecto, un impuesto privado por integrar el espacio digital. Un Estado que promueve la falacia del éxito por medio del mérito y esfuerzo personal para desembarazarse de la responsabilidad de hacer política para desactivar los entramados sociales y económicos que condicionan a Argentina. En definitiva, Milei propone un Estado que no gobierna y ese es el país que le conviene a la Argentina Tecno porque así, desde sus plataformas, pueden gobernar con el auspicio de sus jefas, las gigantes digitales globales.
In this episode of the Future Histories podcast I explain how today’s big tech hegemons build intellectual monopolies and use their power for corporate planning beyond ownership.
This episode was recorded during a live event, hosted by the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation Berlin. Many thanks to everybody involved!
What does it mean for Europe if tech oligarchs own the platforms that are the digital infrastructure that provides citizens with information? But more importantly, how do we get out of this situation and start building a digital stack for people and the planet?
Published on January 9, 2025.
Co-authored with Cédric Durand
“Trabajo en lo que yo llamo la monopolización intelectual, específicamente la del capitalismo digital”. Así se presenta Cecilia Rikap (Buenos Aires, 40 años), profesora de Economía en la University College London y directora de investigación del Instituto para la Innovación y el Propósito Público (IIPP) de ese centro. En los últimos años, Rikap se ha especializado en analizar cómo las grandes tecnológicas acaparan la generación de conocimiento (no solo puramente tecnológico, sino también académico, información sobre los propios usuarios y sobre los procesos productivos) y cómo eso las coloca en una situación de dominio en el mercado.
Happy to share my new paper published by the Regional Studies Association "Area Development and Policy" journal.
I present synthesize of intellectual monopoly capitalism focusing on how leading corporations plan production & innovation systems including GVC, platforms and franchisees
You can watch the episode here. My intervention starts around minute 15
Your are more than welcome to watch my presentation at the EPOG Joint seminars.
I received so many inspiring questions and interventions by EPOG students that I could not be more grateful!!
Want to know more about the EPOG+ Erasmus Mundus Master's Programme? Go to www.epog.eu
Our book w/ Bal Lundvall “The Digital Innovation Race” is finally out! GAFAM & BATH as intellectual monopolies, their technological convergence, their interplay with the US and Chinese states and the US-China conflict as driven by the digital race.
We show that Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, as well as their counterparts in China extract value and appropriate intellectual rents through privileged access to AI algorithms trained by data from organizations & individuals around the world.
We provide insights on the complex interplay b/w corporate & national innovation systems by looking at US-China conflict as a struggle for global techno supremacy and alternative scenarios of global governance, policy recos + calls for social activism
"China's catching-up in artificial intelligence seen as a co-evolution of corporate and national innovation systems" Lundval and Rikap
Presents Freeman's ideas on technological revolutions changing the world order.
Explores China's National Innovation System AI catching-up.
Introduces Corporate innovation system (CIS) concept.
Compares Alibaba and Tencent CIS with those of Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
Discusses co-evolution of China's NIS and tech giants' CIS.
New open access paper!
Corporate financialization’s conservation and transformation: from Mark I to Mark II
Tristan Auvray, Cédric Durand, Joel Rabinovich & Cecilia Rikap
Review of Evolutionary Political Economy (2021)
Access it here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43253-021-00045-4
Regional Studies Association Plenary.
Watch the recording of the ADP Annual Lecture. “Global Value Chains from an Evolutionary Economic Geography perspective: a research agenda”
Speaker: Ron Boschma (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
Discussant: Cecilia Rikap (National Institute for Scientific and Technological Research, Buenos Aires and Université de Paris, France)
Discussant: Canfei He (College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University-Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy, China)
Crash Course on Big Tech, techno-feudalism and democracy:
In this second Crash Course episode of the series on Big Tech, Techno-feudalism and Democracy, we zoomed in on intellectual property. We have invited political economist Cecilia Rikap to explain where intellectual property comes from, what its role is in fabricating monopoly power, and why it is important to understand the rise of Big tech and Big Pharma.
Check-out our new PlosOne paper on Health and Biomedical Sciences dominant research agenda and the role of big pharma influencing it.
The paper attracted media attention, some links below:
http://www.unsam.edu.ar/tss/quien-maneja-la-agenda-cientifica/
I wrote a summary of my book "Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered" for Developing Economics blog (available in English and in Spanish).
In this summary, I focus on the chapters that deal with the impacts of intellectual monopoly capitalism on the peripheries.
I also birefly refer to what is to be done to tilt the scale against intellectual monopoly capitalism?
Last March 22nd I presented my new book "Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered", published by Routledge, at a Young Scholar's Initiative (INET) Webinar.
The recording is available here.
Access to my latest OpEds at @Ambito.com
May, 2021. Argentina, ¿mano de obra barata para el Silicon Valley?
Feb, 2021. “Efecto colateral: BlackRock siempre gana en la era digital”
Jan, 2021. “El poder político en la era digital”
Nov, 2020. “Microsoft: ganadora de las acusaciones contra las gigantes digitales”
Due to lack of time, I seldom update this section. What follows dates from 2022.
