Cognitive Abilities, Democracy and Intellectual Property Rights Protection

Abstract

The goal of this research is to investigate the link between cognitive abilities, as measured by cognitive abilities index and intellectual property rights protection using cross-national data. The findings suggest that cognitive abilities at a national level are significantly related with IPR protection. As expected intellectual capacity is positively and significantly related to the intellectual property rights and explain nearly 23% of cross national differences. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in the cognitive abilities index is associated with slightly less than a half standard deviation rise in IPR index. However, 65% of the effect of cognitive abilities on IPR protection is mediated by the democratic institutions.

Will a Collectivistic Culture protect your Intellectual Property? Effect of Individualism on Intellectual Property Protection

“…In addition, economic development and trade openness are also controlled in the regression model. Odilova and Gu (2017) tested the hypothesis that culture, measured by cognitive capital, and democracy are related to IPR protection. Their study reports that the effect of cognitive skills is partially mediated by political institutions.…”