حمایت از حقوق مالکیت معنوی و بیکاری در مدل شمال جنوب: تجزیه و تحلیل نظری

In this paper, we analyse a North South dynamic general equilibrium model of the international product cycle to study the effects of strengthening the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection in the South on the rate of innovation in the North and on the level of unemployment in the South. Introducing efficiency wage hypothesis into the standard Grossman–Helpman [Grossman, G. and E. Helpman, 1991b. Endogenous product cycles. The Economic Journal, 101, 1214–1229.] product variety framework we explain unemployment equilibrium in the unskilled labour market in the South. We show that the strengthening of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection has a negative effect on the steady state equilibrium rate of innovation. However, its effect on the level of unemployment in the South depends on the relative wage gap between these two regions. In the wide gap equilibrium case, stronger IPR protection lowers the level of unemployment. However, in the narrow gap case, this raises the level of unemployment. We also analyse the effects of changes in labour endowments in both the countries.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of strengthening the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection on the rate of economic growth in developed countries and on the level of unemployment in less developed countries when different countries of the world are involved in free and unrestricted trade. We use a North South product cycle model as developed by Grossman and Helpman (hereafter called GH) (1991b). Endogenous growth is driven by the introduction of the new differentiated products in the North which are later imitated in the South; and the unemployment in the unskilled labour market in the South is explained by the efficiency wage hypothesis. There are two branches of the existing literature to which our paper is related. The first one focuses on the relationship between the long run rate of economic growth and the level of unemployment in a closed economy framework.1 A subset of these works considers unemployment resulting from efficiency wage.2 However, these papers do not consider the North South product transfer through imitation in the South; and hence do not analyse the role of IPR protection in the South. The other branch of the literature deals with the effects of strengthening IPR protection in the less developed countries on the rate of economic growth and on the welfare in the different trading countries of the world. However, these papers use North South models based on Grossman and Helpman, 1991a and Grossman and Helpman, 1991b framework and assume full employment of labour in all the countries.3 The model of Arnold (2002) is the only exception in the North South literature because it deals with the unemployment problem in the North. However, Arnold (2002) does not consider unemployment in the South caused by the efficiency wage hypothesis. In reality, less developed countries suffer from severe unemployment and underemployment problems of unskilled (uneducated) labour in agricultural sectors and in urban informal sectors. In this paper, we extend the GH (1991b) model introducing unemployment in the South caused by the efficiency wage hypothesis. We consider a South with two types of labour — skilled and unskilled; and introduce efficiency wage hypothesis in the unskilled labour market. Mirrlees (1976), Stiglitz (1976), Dasgupta and Ray (1986) and many others explain unemployment of unskilled labour in less developed countries using the efficiency wage hypothesis in static models. However, the North has only skilled labour. In the Western developed countries, the illiteracy rate is negligible and the percentage of unskilled (uneducated) workers is very low. So we do not consider unskilled labour in the North. However, illiteracy is a serious problem in poor countries of South Asia and Africa. Agricultural sectors and Urban informal sectors in less developed countries are mainly dependent on unskilled (uneducated) workers. Size of the formal sector in a less developed country is far lower than the size of the unorganised (agriculture and urban informal) sector. Efficiency wage hypothesis is generally valid for those workers who are underpaid because the improvement in their income raises their levels of consumption and working abilities. Rodgers (1975), Bliss and Stern (1978) etc. provide empirical evidences in favour of this hypothesis. Unskilled workers of agricultural and informal sectors earn substantially less than skilled workers of the formal sectors. This framework allows us to analyse the effects of strengthening IPR protection on the rate of economic growth and on the level of unemployment in the steady state equilibrium of the world economy. We show that the movements of growth rate and unemployment level due to strengthening of IPR protection may not be unidirectional; and the nature of their movements depends on the North South wage gap. In both the wide gap and the narrow gap cases, stronger IPR protection in the South lowers the balanced rate of growth of both the regions and raises the North South relative wage in the new steady state equilibrium. However, the level of unemployment in the South is increased in the narrow gap case and is decreased in the wide gap case. We also analyse the effects of changes in factor endowments of both the regions. The expansion of the Southern skilled (Northern) labour endowment raises the rate of innovation (growth) and raises (lowers) the rate of imitation. A similar result is also obtained from the GH (1991b) model. The level of unemployment in the South is increased (decreased) due to an expansion of the Northern (Southern skilled) labour endowment in the narrow gap case. However, in the wide gap case, the expansion of the Northern labour endowment does not affect the Southern unemployment at all. So the effect of the change in the Northern labour endowment on the level of Southern unemployment crucially depends on the North South wage gap. The expansion of the unskilled labour endowment in the South does not affect the innovation rate and the imitation rate and only raises the level of unemployment there. Like GH (1991b), the North South relative wage varies directly (inversely) with the size of the Northern (Southern skilled) labour endowment in this model. However, the change in the unskilled labour endowment in the South does not affect the North South relative wage at all. This paper is organised as follows. The model of the international product cycle with unemployment in the South is presented in Section 2. Section 3 presents the reduced form steady state equilibrium conditions and analyses the effects of strengthening IPR protection and of changes in labour endowments on the unemployment level and on the growth rate. In Subsection 3.1, we analyse these effects in the wide gap case; and, in Subsection 3.2, we do the same in the narrow gap case. Concluding remarks are made in Section 4.

In this paper, we analyse the impact of strengthening IPR protection in the South on the steady state equilibrium rate of growth of the world economy as well as on the rate of imitation and on the level of unemployment in the South. We show that strengthening of IPR in the South lowers both the equilibrium rate of growth and the rate of imitation. However, the level of unemployment of the unskilled labour in the South is increased in the narrow gap case and is decreased in the wide gap case. The level of unemployment in our model is directly related to the size of the imitative R&D sector in the South. It should be noted that, in GH (1991b), the size of the R&D sector in the South is decreased in the wide gap case and is increased in the narrow gap case as the cost of imitation is increased. However, this property is never focused in that paper. We use that unfocused property by relating it to the level of unemployment in the South. It is also shown that the North South relative wage is increased in both the cases. We also analyse the effects of changes in factor endowments on the steady state equilibrium values of various endogenous variables. Effects of changes in the Northern and the Southern skilled labour endowments on the rate of innovation, on the rate of imitation and on the North South relative wage are similar to those effects obtained in GH (1991b). The level of unemployment of the unskilled labour in the South varies inversely (directly) with the size of its skilled (unskilled) labour endowment and does not depend on the North South wage gap. However, the effect of the change in the Northern labour endowment on the Southern unemployment level depends on the North South wage gap. In the wide gap case, a change in the Northern labour endowment has no effect on the unemployment level. However, its expansion raises the unemployment level in the narrow gap case. We explain only unemployment of unskilled labour by using the efficiency wage hypothesis. If the efficiency wage is not relevant, then this model is reduced to a full employment model. Many authors have explained unemployment of unskilled labour in less developed countries using the efficiency wage hypothesis. However, they have not considered our formulation in which the reference wage is proportional to some peer group's wage. This particular form applies mostly to those workers who are hard to monitor; and skilled workers are always harder to monitor than unskilled workers. A positive relationship between the worker's efficiency and the wage rate is necessary to explain the existence of an unemployment equilibrium; and this positive relationship exists in any form of the efficiency wage function including the form we consider here. Our results are conditional on the assumption that the reference wage is proportional to the wage of the skilled workers. Due to this assumption, the equilibrium condition of the efficiency wage gives us the unique equilibrium value of skilled unskilled wage ratio which is consistent with the assumption of steady state growth equilibrium where all types of wages are to grow at equal rates. If we drop this assumption we may not be able to prove the existence of a unique time independent skilled unskilled wage ratio. However, the empirical literature on efficiency wage theory has been unable to conclude so far on the most plausible form of efficiency wages and, in particular, on the reference wage level entering the worker's effort decision. In a partial equilibrium shirking model, the outside option is often treated as the reference wage. However, we cannot do this in the present dynamic general equilibrium model. The assumption of perfect mobility of unskilled workers among all Southern firms and the competitive labour market assumption rule out the possibility of an equilibrium with the difference between the worker's actual wage inside the firm and his expected wage in case he is to leave the firm. Danthine and Kurmann (2006) assume firm's productivity as the reference wage. In the present model, the profit maximising average productivity of the unskilled or skilled labour in the production sector is a function of the skilled unskilled wage ratio because the production function of each variety in the South satisfies constant returns to scale. So introducing firm's productivity as the reference wage, no additional gain is made in this model. However, future research should deal with the robustness of the results to different functional forms of the efficiency function and to different assumptions about the reference wage. In this model, the consumer does not derive any utility from leisure and so it does not make any optimum labour–leisure allocation. The efficiency of unskilled labour varies only with the skilled unskilled wage ratio and this ratio is uniquely determined by the profit maximising conditions of the firm. Number of workers is exogenous and hence the effective labour supply expressed in efficiency unit also becomes exogenous along the profit maximising path. There is no growth induced income effect on the labour supply decision of the worker. The strengthening of the IPR protection does not cause any shift of the labour supply curve. Modern macroeconomics analyses some growth theoretic issues within a general equilibrium framework with endogenous labour supply where the growth induced income effect shifts the labour supply curve. It is interesting to analyse the issue of IPR protection into a framework with endogenous labour supply; and we plan to do this in our future research. There are some other important limitations in our model. We ignore the distributional aspect of unemployment here. Our analysis is concentrated only on the steady state equilibrium properties of the model and hence cannot say anything about transitional properties. We do not deal with the unemployment problem in the North and the unemployment problem of the skilled labour in the South. We assume, like many other models in this literature, that the South does not innovate. Nevertheless, the model constructed here sheds new light on the complex interrelationship among innovation, imitation and the unemployment of unskilled labour in the South. No other existing model has analysed this complex inter relationship so far.