International intellectual property rights: Effects on growth, welfare and income inequality

What are the effects of strengthening developing countries’ protection for intellectual property rights on economic growth and income inequality in the global economy? To analyze this question, we develop a two-country R&;D-based growth model with wealth heterogeneity. In this growth-theoretic framework, we show that strengthening patent protection in either country increases economic growth and income inequality in both countries. Furthermore, we derive the Nash equilibrium level of patent breadth and find that it is sub-optimally low relative to globally optimal patent breadth due to the positive externality effects that are captured by a spillover parameter.     

Customer Response to Carbon Labelling of Groceries

Thirty-seven products were labelled to indicate embodied carbon emissions, and sales were recorded over a 3-month period. Green (below average), yellow (near average), and black (above average) footprints indicated carbon emissions embodied in groceries. The overall change in purchasing pattern was small, with black-labelled sales decreasing 6% and green-labelled sales increasing 4% after labelling. However, when green-labelled products were also the cheapest, the shift was more substantial, with a 20% switch from black- to green-label sales. These findings illustrate the potential for labelling to stimulate reductions in carbon emissions.     

Effects of Patent Policy on Income and Consumption Inequality in a R&D Growth Model

To analyze the effects of patent policy on growth and inequality, this article develops a quality‐ladder model with wealth heterogeneity and elastic labor supply. The model predicts that strengthening patent protection increases (a) economic growth by stimulating spending on research and development and (b) income inequality by raising the return on assets. Elastic labor supply creates an additional effect on income inequality. As for consumption inequality, the effect is ambiguous and depends on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. Calibrating the model to the U.S. data shows that strengthening patent protection increases income inequality by more than consumption inequality, and this pattern is consistent with the data.     

Patentability and Knowledge Spillovers of Basic R&D

This study develops a research and development (R&D)–based growth model with basic and applied research to analyze the growth and welfare effects of two patent instruments: (i) the patentability of basic R&D and (ii) the division of profit between basic and applied researchers. We find that for the purpose of stimulating basic R&D and economic growth simultaneously, increasing the share of profit assigned to basic researchers is more effective than raising the patentability of basic R&D, which has either a negative effect or an inverted‐U effect on technological progress. However, a benevolent patent authority requires both patent instruments to achieve the socially optimal allocation in the decentralized economy.     

Inequalities in Children's Experiences of Home Learning during the COVID-19 Lockdown in England*

This paper combines novel data on the time use, home-learning practices and economic circumstances of families with children during the COVID-19 lockdown with pre-lockdown data from the UK Time Use Survey to characterise the time use of children and how it changed during lockdown, and to gauge the extent to which changes in time use and learning practices during this period are likely to reinforce the already large gaps in educational attainment between children from poorer and better-off families. We find considerable heterogeneity in children's learning experiences – amount of time spent learning, activities undertaken during this time and availability of resources to support learning. Concerningly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, this heterogeneity is strongly associated with family income and in some instances more so than before lockdown. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that any impacts of inequalities in time spent learning between poorer and richer children are likely to be compounded by inequalities not only in learning resources available at home, but also in those provided by schools.     

Purchasing health care services: Information sources and decisional criteria

The introduction of a market mechanism into the National Health service in the UK was underpinned by the belief that decentralised purchasing would both improve the quality of health care provision and restrain spiralling costs, through purchasers exercising their ability to choose between alternative providers. Focusing on budget holding General Practitioners, that is those practices responsible for purchasing hospital services for their practice populations, this paper explores the evolving purchasing behaviour of these professional intermediaries. Drawing on empirical evidence gathered as part of a broader study of the purchasing behaviour of GP Fundholders in Scotland, specifically it examines the key information sources and decisional criteria utilised by these professional intermediaries in selecting health care providers for their practice population. Utilising relational models of market behaviour, it addresses both the contextually specific issue of whether the market mechanism within the NHS is achieving the twin objectives of improving health care provision and restraining cost pressures, and the broader conceptual issue of the purchasing behaviour of professional intermediaries within a service sector environment.