International Standards for IP Protection and R&D Incentives Revisited

Aoki and Prusa (1993), Journal of International Economics, examine the effects of differing standards of IPRs protection on the R&D intensity of home country firms. This paper builds on this work by examining the R&D outcomes of home country firms when foreign rivals imitate rather than innovate. In infant industries, full commitment to discriminatory protection always leads to the most R&D. In mature industries, full commitment to discriminatory protection leads to reduced R&D intensity. This contrasts with the dynamic case where discriminatory protection, by relaxing a binding cash in advance constraint, leads to more R&D than does uniform protection.