نوآوری، حقوق مالکیت معنوی، و توسعه اقتصادی: تجربه بررسی متحد

Two important strands of literature investigate the way the effect of intellectual property rights (IPR) on innovation depends on either the initial IPR level or the level of economic development. We expand on this by studying their joint effect, in a single, unified, empirical framework. We find that the effect of IPR on innovation is more complex than previously thought, displaying important nonlinearities depending on the initial levels of both IPR and per capita GDP. The policy implications of this are examined and include the conclusion that a single global level of IPR is in general sub-optimal.

Among the different engines of economic growth, none has received as much attention as innovation. In recognition of the importance of innovation for promoting economic development, the World Trade Organization (WTO), along with other international institutions, emphasized several decades ago the crucial role of intellectual property rights (IPR) for enhancing innovation worldwide. Since then, the study of the relation between IPR and innovation has become a prominent topic in economic research. In an excellent recent survey, Park (2008a) identifies three main questions that have been addressed in the literature: (i) how do IPR affect the composition of technology transfer by mode of entry, (ii) does the impact of IPR on innovation vary by the stage of economic development, and (iii) do stronger IPR stimulate innovation? The goal of the present contribution is to expand on these latter two issues in a single, unified, empirical analysis linking innovation, IPR and the level of economic development. To this end, we provide econometric estimations based on panel smooth threshold regressions (PSTR), a technique recently developed by Gonzalez, Terasvirta, and van Dijk (2005). Specifically we employ an identification procedure to search for endogenously estimated threshold effects of IPR on innovation, on a sample of both developed and developing countries. Contrary to previous studies that constrained the shape of the impact of IPR (and of the level of economic development) on innovation to simple polynomial forms, the identification procedure allows for a high complexity of the nonlinearities. In particular, since the transition between regimes is smooth, the innovation/IPR elasticity differs across countries and time-periods, with respect to the levels of both IPR and economic development. This is particularly important given the numerous structural reforms in many countries during the 90s. 1

Contrary to previous papers that looked at the impact of GDP per capita and IPR on innovation in isolation, we consider a unified econometric framework, in which the impact of IPR on innovation was subjected to the joint influence of initial IPR and per capita GDP levels. We used the PSTR methodology to search for nonlinear effects with smooth transitions, between innovation, IPR, and economic development, in a panel of developing and developed countries. We showed that strengthened IPR exert a complex effect on innovation, both in sign and magnitude, which depends on both the initial level of IPR and per capita GDP. These results thus help reconcile the differing results noted earlier on the different impact of IPR on innovation in developing and developed countries. Previous papers prescribed an ad hoc transition, by way of a quadratic equation, for example, or used a “brutal transition” between regimes by estimating threshold effects. These previous estimates did have the advantage of simplicity, but they were a simplification and few would have seriously believed that these approaches were totally satisfactory. In this sense, our approach is an advance on previous work. The curves we have identified illustrate a complex interplay between GDP per capita and the existing level of IPR in determining the nature of the response of innovation to a strengthening of IPR