Trade policy mix: IPR protection and R&D subsidies

Abstract .  This paper analyses strategic R&D policy under circumstances where intellectual property rights protection resulting from firms' R&D investment is not perfect. By examining policy choices wherein a government chooses both R&D subsidies and IPR protection levels simultaneously, we show that it is optimal for a government to adopt sufficiently weak IPR protection and to subsidize R&D investments of domestic firms. Inducing R&D investment of foreign rival firms will increase the profits of domestic firms.     

Intellectual Property Rights and Crop-Improving R&D under Adaptive Destruction

This paper studies how the strength of intellectual property rights (IPRs) affects investments in biological innovations when the value of an innovation is stochastically reduced to zero because of the evolution of pest resistance. We frame the problem as a research and development (R&D) investment game in a duopoly model of sequential innovation. We characterize the incentives to invest in R&D under two competing IPR regimes, which differ in their treatment of the follow-on innovations that become necessary because of pest adaptation. Depending on the magnitude of the R&D cost, ex ante firms might prefer an intellectual property regime with or without a “research exemption” provision. The study of the welfare function that also accounts for benefit spillovers to consumers—which is possible analytically under some parametric conditions, and numerically otherwise—shows that the ranking of the two IPR regimes depends critically on the extent of the R&D cost.      

Heterogeneous Academic‐Industry Knowledge Linkage,Heterogeneous IPR,and Growth

Empirical evidence shows the existence of relevant spillovers from the stock of academic basic knowledge on industry. Interestingly, such spillovers are highly specific in that firms’ academic learning responds strongly to federally funded R&D in closely affiliated universities. Moreover, with the aim of enhancing such a technological transfer from academia to industry, the policy design of many OECD countries allows worthy academic ideas to be granted the same intellectual property rights (IPR) as industrial innovations. In distinguishing the stages of an R&D process within a dynamic general equilibrium model, this paper explicitly considers both industrial and government R&D efforts, with heterogeneous academic knowledge spillovers among industry lines. The results show that both the industrial R&D effort and the growth rate are spurred more by a “softer” IPR regime granted to academic ideas than by an increase in the industrial R&D subsidy.     

Intellectual Property Rights and Entry into a Foreign Market: FDI versus Joint Ventures

We study the effect of the intellectual property rights (IPR) regime of a host country (South) on a multinational's decision between serving a market via greenfield foreign direct investment to avoid the exposure of its technology or a North–South joint venture (JV) with a local firm, which allows R&D spillovers under imperfect IPRs. JV is the equilibrium market structure when R&D intensity is moderate and IPRs strong. The South can gain from increased IPR protection because it encourages a JV, whereas policies to limit foreign ownership in a JV gain importance in technology‐intensive industries as complementary policies to strong IPRs.     

Intellectual property rights and skills accumulation: A product-cycle model of FDI and outsourcing

This study investigates the effects of stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the South on innovation, skills accumulation, wage inequality, and patterns of production based on a North–South general-equilibrium model with foreign direct investment (FDI) and international outsourcing. We find that stronger Southern IPR protection raises the extent of outsourcing and reduces the extent of FDI. This increases the proportion of unskilled Southerners and mitigates Southern wage inequality. In the North, stronger Southern IPR protection raises the proportion of skilled Northerners and wage inequality. The effects of international specialization, R&D cost, and Northern population are also examined.     

Private patent protection in the theory of Schumpeterian growth

We develop a Schumpeterian growth model with privately optimal intellectual property rights (IPRs) enforcement and investigate the implications for intellectual property and R&D policies. In our setting, successful innovators undertake costly rent protection activities (RPAs) to enforce their patents. RPAs deter innovators who seek to discover higher quality products and thereby replace the patent holder. RPAs also deter imitators who seek to capture a portion of the monopoly market by imitating the patent holder's product. We investigate the role of private IPR protection by considering the impact of subsidies to RPAs on economic growth and welfare. We find that a larger RPA subsidy raises the innovation rate if and only if the ease of imitation is above a certain level. With regards to welfare, we find that depending on the parameters it may be optimal to tax or subsidize RPAs. Thus a prohibitively high taxation of RPAs is not necessarily optimal. We also show that the presence of imitation strengthens the case for subsidizing R&D.     

Is trade in electrical and electronic products sensitive to IPR protection? Evidence from China’s exports

This article attempts to provide the first empirical evidence on the effect of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on China’s export of electrical and electronic products. It adopts a gravity model for unbalanced panel data of China’s 146 important trading partners over the period of 2002–2012. To eliminate the effects of FDI in determining the linkage between IPR and exports, the panel excludes the destination countries and territories that invest in China. The results reveal that the level of IPR protection in destination countries has a positive impact on China’s flow of exports. Further analysis on data disaggregated by IPR score demonstrates that a higher level of IPR protection in destination countries and territories is positively linked with China’s exports of these items in each of the IPR protection clusters and indicates a strong market power effect by the interplay between R&D expenditure and IPR in the destinations. Finally, both market power and market expansion effects are found to be prevalent in the destinations, as implied by the coefficient of IPR protection disaggregated by income level of China’s export destinations. The results generally resemble those in the literature that describe the linkage between IPR protection and trade flows.     

The role of contracts and intellectual property rights in open innovation

Our exploratory empirical study, based on interviews and a survey of firms, addresses a number of questions on the role of formal contracts and intellectual property rights (IPR) in the context of firm-to-firm open innovation (OI). We find that firms active in OI have a very strong preference for the governance of their OI relationships with other firms through formal contracts. Also, despite the open nature of OI, firms still see IPR as highly relevant to the protection of their innovative capabilities. We find the degree of openness of firms, their formal legal attitude, and the competitive dynamics of their product market environment to be related to the preference of OI firms for IPR. Furthermore, the strength of firms’ internal R&D capabilities increases the positive relationship between openness and the preference for IPR.     

Quantitative growth effects of subsidies in a search theoretic R&D model

Should government subsidize R&D and does it matter how these subsidies are allocated? We examine these questions in a dynamic model where R&D is described as sequential sampling from a distribution of new ideas. Successful discoveries affect future available resources and incentives for further R&D. Consequently, there may be under-investment in R&D. We study the effect of government interventions aimed at fostering growth through R&D. Calibrating the model with aggregate data from the Israeli business sector allows us to quantitatively compare two forms of support resembling those actually used to encourage R&D in the Israeli business sector: (i) an unrestricted subsidy that may be used at the recipients' discretion to finance R&D or other investments, (ii) a subsidy earmarked by the government for R&D activities only. While there is no theoretical way to determine which of the two subsidies will have a greater impact on search for new ideas and growth, we find that in the calibrated economy both subsidies have a significant but similar impact on the economy's output and TFP growth rates. Accordingly, in the case of the Israeli business sector, the incentives to conduct R&D were sufficiently strong, and no R&D-specific encouragement was needed. However, a sensitivity analysis reveals that for economies characterized by other parameter values this result may not be true. Correspondence to: B. Bental     

Imitation and innovation driven development under imperfect intellectual property rights

Developing countries employ about two-fifth of the world's researchers, originate one quarter of world expenditures on R&D, and their inventions are subject to imitation. Nevertheless, the previous literature focuses on North–South setups in which the South is restricted to imitating northern inventions. To analyze the effects of IPR policies on developed and developing countries, we extend this literature to allow not only for southern innovation and imitation of northern goods, but also for imitation targeted at southern innovations. We find the effects of IPRs on R&D and welfare to be non-monotonic and dependent on innovation efficiency and an innovation threshold in the South. For sufficiently strong IPRs the South engages in original R&D and stronger IPRs promote southern innovation, welfare, and a reduction in the North–South wage gap. Below the threshold, a strengthening of IPR protection fails to promote innovation and decreases welfare. Stronger IPRs exclusively for southern firms can benefit both regions by shifting southern resources from the imitation of northern goods to original southern innovation.     

R&D and productivity growth: Evidence from the UK

Although the econometric evaluation of R&D has attracted wide interest in many countries, it has not attracted much in the UK. The main objective of this paper is to fill this void, i.e., to estimate the impact of R&D on productivity growth of the UK manufacturing sector. However, there are some additional objectives. Firstly, we estimate the impact of R&D on productivity growth of large and small firms and we discuss a number of theoretical arguments regarding the role of firm size. Secondly, given that the technological infrastructure influences the innovative capacity of a firm, we compare the impact of R&D on productivity growth of high-tech firms with the corresponding impact on productivity growth of low-tech firms. Thirdly, we investigate whether the contribution of R&D to productivity growth has changed over time.

Based on firm-level data (78 firms, 1989–2002), we find that the contribution of R&D is approximately 0.04. Although the R&D-elasticity of large firms (0.044) is higher than the corresponding elasticity of small firms (0.035), the difference is small. In contrast, the R&D-elasticity is considerably high for high-tech sectors (0.11), but statistically insignificant for low-tech sectors. Finally, the investigation of the elasticity of R&D over time revealed an interesting discontinuity showing that although until 1995 the R&D-elasticity was approximately zero, after 1995 it increased dramatically to 0.09. We investigate the potential causes of such non-linearity and we suggest a number of possible explanations.     

Economic Growth with Imperfect Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

This paper examines the growth effects of intellectual property right (IPR) protection in a quality-ladder model of endogenous growth. Stronger IPR protection, which reduces the imitation probability, increases the reward for innovation. However, stronger protection also gradually reduces the number of competitive sectors, in which innovation is easier than in monopolistic sectors. With free entry to R&D, the number of researchers in each remaining competitive sector increases, but the concentration of R&D activity raises the possibility of unnecessary duplication of innovation, thereby hindering growth. Consequently, imperfect rather than perfect protection maximizes growth. Welfare and scale effects are also examined.     

Cooperative R&D and Commitment to A Policy of Know-how Trading

In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework to investigate the impact of adopting a strategy of know-how trading on the degree of research and development (R&D) cooperation. We show that the consequences of cooperation in know-how sharing under the conditions of the model are similar to a policy of cooperation in R&D investments in areas with large spillovers. An industry-wide policy of cooperation among competitors with respect to R&D investment and sharing would simply result in maximal joint profits. This cooperative R&D outcome could be generalized to any degree of spillover other than 100%. In this paper, the commitment to a policy of know-how trading by the participants in an industry is explained by the firm’s attempt to induce the equilibrium of a single industry-wide cooperative research joint venture. In a repeated game framework, we show that pre-commitments by non-cooperative firms to disclose their own know-how to the industry can be effective in inducing cooperative R&D investments by the participants.     

Impact of R&D expenditures,rainfall and temperature variations in agricultural productivity: empirical evidence from Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate dynamic relationships between research and development (R&D) expenditure, climate change (measured by annual rainfall and temperature variations), human capital (proxied by literacy) and total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Bangladesh agriculture. Pesaran’s Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator is used to a unique panel data of 17 regions of Bangladesh covering a 61-year period (1948–2008). In addition, the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model is also applied to trace the responsiveness of TFP from a shock to R&D, extension services, and literacy rate. Results reveal that R&D has an insignificant impact on TFP in the short-run, while it has a significant positive impact in the long-run. The contributions of climate variables (i.e., rainfall and temperature variations) are highly significant and negative in the long run. The literacy rate is found to have a significant positive impact on TFP as expected. These results suggest that agricultural R&D investment and human capital could play an important role to ameliorate the adverse effects of climate change in the agricultural sector of Bangladesh.     

Has New Zealand benefited from its investments in research & development?

We use panel data for nine industries to evaluate research and development (R&D) investments in New Zealand over the past forty years. We estimate the impact of R&D stocks in a particular industry on output per person in that industry and on output per person in the rest of the economy. We examine both public and private R&D investments. Privately provided R&D has a statistically significant positive impact on own-industry output per person, suggesting it increases productivity. However, publicly provided R&D has no impact on own-industry output per person. There is also evidence that private R&D in certain industries positively affects output per person in the rest of the economy, i.e. it generates positive spillovers. There is no evidence of positive spillovers from publicly provided R&D.     

Employment growth and innovation at the firm level

We analyze the influence of innovation on growth rates of employment in 859 Dutch manufacturing firms over the period 1983–1988. Whereas the (growth of the) R&D intensity of firms has a slightly negative impact on employment, we find that firms with a high share of product-related R&D (as a proxi of R&D related to industrial activities in an early stage of the life cycle) experienced an above average growth of employment. The same holds for firms which directed their R&D towards information technology. Smaller firms have, ceteris paribus, substantially higher growth rates of employment than their larger counterparts. Against our expectations, R&D cooperation has no significant impact on employment growth. The same holds for activities in the fields of biotechnology and new materials.     

How does leverage affect R&D intensity and how does R&D intensity impact on firm value in South Korea?

We examine how leverage affects corporate research and development (R&D) intensity, as well as examine the impact of R&D on firm value in South Korea, a country in which corporate-funded R&D intensity is one of the highest in the world. Among our main results, we find that growth opportunities have a positive effect on R&D intensity, while leverage has a negative effect on R&D intensity. When leverage is at an extremely high level, the relationship between growth opportunities and R&D intensity turns from positive to negative. Using instrumental variables, we find that R&D generates an increase in firm value.     

A contribution to the theory and empirics of Schumpeterian growth with worldwide interactions

This paper proposes an integrated theoretical and methodological framework characterized by technological interactions to explain growth processes from a Schumpeterian perspective. Global interdependence implied by international R&D spillovers needs to be taken into account in both the theoretical and empirical models. For this task, spatial econometrics is the appropriate tool. The econometric model we propose includes the neoclassical growth model as a particular case. We can therefore explicitly test the role of R&D investment in the long-run growth process against the Solow growth model. Finally, the properties of our spatial econometric specification allow the explicit evaluation of the impact of home and foreign R&D spillovers.     

Spillovers,product innovation and R&D cooperation: a theoretical model

ABSTRACT

We analyze the impact of post-innovation knowledge spillovers on firms’ decisions to invest and cooperate in R&D, forming a research joint venture (RJV). We study the case of two potential investors involved in a non-tournament stochastic competition for developing a new but imitable product. We propose a theoretical model where cooperation may emerge as a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium of a three-stage game. In the first stage, firms decide whether to cooperate; in the second, they decide whether to invest; and in the third, they compete. We show that firms cooperate in R&D when the spillovers are high enough and the fixed costs associated with R&D activities are low enough; however, our analysis suggests that forming an RJV may not always be socially optimal, and subsidizing R&D cooperation may not be efficient. We propose an optimal scheme of subsidies, which should be designed according to the intensity of the spillovers, the level of the R&D costs, and the probability of innovation success. Finally, we show that in the case of mergers the private incentive to invest is maximized, and firms may not need public subsidies to cooperate. When subsidies are costly, not hindering mergers may be the second-best solution.     

Tax cuts and enterprises’ R&D intensity: Evidence from a natural experiment in China

This paper studies the impact of tax cuts on enterprises’ R&D intensity. We use a natural experiment involving China’s business tax changing to value-added tax (“BT to VAT”) to identify any causality. The results reveal that this tax reform has prompted enterprises to increase their research and development (R&D) investment. Specifically, a stronger ability to transfer tax, results in this change having a more significant promotional effect on enterprises’ R&D intensity. Further analysis demonstrates that firms with different ownership types and in different industries respond differently to the “BT to VAT” policy. Our findings are only significant for non-state-owned and other modern service enterprises. This paper provides a theoretical and empirical basis for detailed analyses of the effects of “BT to VAT” policy, particularly the government’s subsequent improvement to the tax reform policy, to further stimulate enterprise investments in R&D as well as industrial upgrading.