DOES FOREIGN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS PROTECTION AFFECT US EXPORTS AND FDI?

Several previous studies have examined the relationship between intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, exports, and FDI independently. However, very few prior analyses jointly examined the linkages between IPR protection and multiple modes of international transactions. This paper investigates how foreign IPR protection affects how US firms jointly serve overseas markets through exports and FDI. Using both static pooled regressions and a dynamic panel GMM estimator on a panel data of 53 countries, we examine whether stronger foreign IPR protection stimulates US international transactions. The empirical results suggest that foreign countries that strengthen their IPR protection, especially those with strong imitative ability, can attract more international transactions from the USA.     

Intellectual property rights and the upgrading of the global value chain status

The present paper explores how intellectual property rights (IPR) protection affects an economy’s status in global value chains (GVC) by introducing IPR protection into the sequential production model. We find that a suitable IPR protection system that matches the phase of economic and technological development a country has reached is the key for developing countries to upgrade their status in GVC, which are dominated by multinational firms from developed countries. Empirical analysis with multinational panel data for 55 countries from 2005 to 2015 provides evidence in support of the predictions of this model, although the GVC‐enhancing effects of IPR protection are heterogeneous for developing and developed countries. The empirical conclusions are robust after using the instrumental variable method and controlling for endogeneity.     

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.     

Negotiation over Intellectual Property Rights Protection in a Mixed Market

This article models a North–South negotiation under a mixed oligopolistic setting where a public firm in the South and a private firm from the North compete in the southern market. The southern firm is a public one whose objective is a weighted sum of the South's social welfare and its own profit, whereas the northern firm is a pure profit maximizer. The North provides a quid pro quo in exchange for the strengthening of the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the South. We show that when the northern and southern firms engage in quantity competition in the southern market, the southern government's optimal choice is either complete protection or complete violation. We show this to depend on the southern government's valuation of the quid pro quo. Moreover, strengthening IPR protection will deepen the privatization process in the South, though it brings about a social welfare loss to the South.     

Intellectual property rights,technology transfer and exports in developing countries

We develop a model to analyze one mechanism under which stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection may improve the ability of firms in developing countries to break into export markets. A Northern firm with a superior process technology chooses either exports or technology transfer through licensing as its mode of supplying the Southern market, based on local IPR policy. Given this decision, the North and South firms engage in Cournot competition in both markets. We find that stronger IPR would enhance technology transfer through licensing and reduce the South firm's marginal production cost, thereby increasing its exports. Welfare in the South would rise (fall) if that country has high (low) absorptive capacity. Excessively strong IPR diminish competition and welfare, however. Adding foreign direct investment as an additional channel of technology transfer sustains these basic messages.     

Intellectual property rights, technology transfer and exports in developing countries

We develop a model to analyze one mechanism under which stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection may improve the ability of firms in developing countries to break into export markets. A Northern firm with a superior process technology chooses either exports or technology transfer through licensing as its mode of supplying the Southern market, based on local IPR policy. Given this decision, the North and South firms engage in Cournot competition in both markets. We find that stronger IPR would enhance technology transfer through licensing and reduce the South firm's marginal production cost, thereby increasing its exports. Welfare in the South would rise (fall) if that country has high (low) absorptive capacity. Excessively strong IPR diminish competition and welfare, however. Adding foreign direct investment as an additional channel of technology transfer sustains these basic messages.     

Intellectual property rights, multinational firms and economic growth

This paper develops a model of North-South trade with multinational firms and economic growth in order to analyze formally the effects of stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in developing countries. In the model, Northern firms invent new higher-quality products, multinational firms transfer manufacturing operations to the South and the Southern firms imitate products produced by multinational firms. It is shown that stronger IPR protection in the South (i.e., the adoption and implementation of the TRIPs agreement) leads to a permanent increase in the rate of technology transfer to the South within multinational firms, a permanent increase in R&D employment by Southern affiliates of Northern multinationals, a permanent decrease in the North-South wage gap, and a temporary increase in the Northern innovation rate.     

知识产权保护与发展中国家创新能力提升——来自中国的实证分析

分析知识产权保护对发展中国家的影响,需要考虑知识产权保护对发展中国家自主研发能力的作用,需要以发展中国家创新能力的提升为研究归宿。文章在考虑了发展中国家培育自主创新能力必要性的基础上,分析了发展中国家在开放条件下实施知识产权保护战略时面临的多重困境。对中国的实证研究表明:知识产权保护是影响FDI规模和质量的重要因素;知识产权保护促进了内资企业的创新能力,并通过研发投入的加强提高了国际技术溢出的吸收效果;加强知识产权保护带来更多更高技术含量FDI的正面效应,可以弥补其对技术溢出的抑制效应。     

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.     

International intellectual property rights protection and economic growth with costly transfer

This paper develops a product‐cycle model with costly technology transfer, which requires resources from both the North and the South. In the basic model, we show that strengthening intellectual property rights (IPR) protection induces a large technology transfer and narrows the North–South wage gap. However, we obtain an ambiguous result regarding the effect on economic growth, which depends crucially on the size of the transfer cost. Although strengthening IPR protection induces a high growth rate when the transfer cost is small, it can induce a low growth rate when the transfer cost is large. In the extended model, in order to examine what factors determine the transfer cost, we consider the situation where the Southern firms may misbehave and the Northern firms incur a cost to monitor them. We show that the degree of investor protection and the degree of morality in developing countries influence the size of the transfer cost, which affects economic growth.     

知识产权保护、FDI与国际收入转移

"加强知识产权保护能吸引更多外商直接投资(FDI),并能使后发国受益"这一命题能否构成支持加强后发国知识产权保护的论据?文章将知识产权保护对FDI、自主创新、国内模仿和国外模仿的影响纳入三方参与的两阶段动态博弈模型,讨论后发国通过加强知识产权保护来吸引FDI的政策效应。分析认为后发国通过加强知识产权保护能吸引更多FDI,但并不一定能从中获益。因为:FDI偏向进入能够对后发国产生最小收益的产业;加强知识产权保护产生了大量国际收入转移;通过加强知识产权保护,由FDI进入新行业而增加的利润将被已有FDI产业利润的减少所抵消。根据各行业特征选择相应的最优知识产权保护才能使总体福利最大化。     

南方最优知识产权保护水平与南方企业自主创新

构建了一个扩展的南北贸易模型,讨论了南方知识产权保护的决定因素及其对南北双方福利的影响。在模型中,南方政府内生决定知识产权保护水平,北方厂商内生决定研发投资水平和市场竞争策略,南方厂商内生决定自主创新或模仿。研究发现:南方的最优知识产权保护水平与北方存在差异;当南方厂商模仿北方厂商的技术时,南方执行最严格的知识产权保护对北方福利和南方福利都造成损害;当南方厂商的创新效率较高时,严格的知识产权保护能激励南方厂商进行自主创新、改善南方福利。     

Endogenous growth and intellectual property rights: A north–south modeling proposal

In this paper, we develop a general equilibrium endogenous growth model that emphasizes the IPR enforcement effects on growth, in a scenario of north–south technological knowledge diffusion. The economy consists of three sectors, and firms are engaged in step-by-step innovation. In line with the literature, we introduce an IPR parameter that makes imitation more difficult. We find that, in steady state, the increases in IPR protection result in decreases in the growth rate. This result is in line with the literature, which argues that the enforcement of IPR does not always have a positive effect on economic growth. To sum up, we present some suggestions for future research which can help to clarify the relationship between IPR and endogenous growth.     

Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Growth

Interest in links between protection of intellectual property and growth has been revived by developments in new growth theory and by the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement. The relationship between the strength of a country’s intellectual property rights (IPRs) regime and rate of growth is ambiguous from a theoretical standpoint, reflecting the variety of channels through which technology can be acquired and their differing importance at different stages of development. We investigate the impact of IPR protection on economic growth in a panel of 79 countries using threshold regression analysis. We show that whilst the effect of IPR protection on growth depends upon the level of development, it is positively and significantly related to growth for low‐ and high‐income countries, but not for middle‐income countries. This suggests that, although IPR protection encourages innovation in high‐income countries, and technology flows to low‐income countries, middle‐income countries may have offsetting losses from reduced scope for imitation.     

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 diaspora knowledge networks: Can patent protection generate brain gain from skilled migration?

This paper studies the mechanism through which intellectual property rights (IPR) protection can influence the impact of skilled migration on innovation activities in developing countries. We argue that knowledge acquired by emigrants abroad can flow back to their country of origin through diaspora networks. IPR protection in the sending country facilitates this channel by increasing returns to skills and encouraging workers to move into the innovation sector. An expansion of the innovation sector allows diaspora knowledge to be absorbed by a larger range of workers. Strong IPR enforcement therefore makes it more likely for brain drain to be transformed into brain gain.     

出口国技术水平与进口国知识产权保护的互动效应对出口国出口贸易的影响——基于中国出口贸易的实证

利用2007—2014年中国对112个国家出口贸易的面板数据,实证研究了中国技术水平、进口国知识产权保护及两者的交互效应对中国出口贸易的影响。结果显示:中国技术水平与高收入进口国知识产权保护的交互效应对中国出口贸易的影响显著为负,而与低收入进口国知识产权保护的交互效应的影响并不显著。这说明,中国出口产品技术水平的提升,对高收入进口国企业的威胁加大,迫使其建立更严苛的贸易壁垒,抑制中国企业出口。     

Intellectual property rights and quality improvement

This paper explores why theories about the effects of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection on foreign direct investment (FDI) and innovation have reached mixed conclusions. In our model, Northern firms innovate to improve the quality of existing products and may later shift production to the South through FDI. Southern firms may then imitate the products of multinationals. We find that imitation can increase FDI and innovation for quality improvements, whereas the opposite occurs when innovators develop new varieties. Hence, stronger IPR protection, by reducing imitation, may shift innovation away from improvements in existing products toward development of new products.     

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.     

SUSTAINING THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGG: A CONTINUOUS TREATMENT OF TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFER

This paper proposes a simple model of the trade-offs perceived by innovating firms when investing in countries with limited intellectual property rights (IPR). The model allows for a continuous treatment of technology transfer and production cost gains occurring through FDI. While it does not consider possible changes in rates of innovation caused by changes in IPR in developing countries, it allows one to uncover a potentially non-monotonic relationship between welfare and IPR in the recipient country.