Enforcement of Intellectual Property, Pollution Abatement, and Directed Technical Change

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the interaction between endogenous enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and tax-financed pollution abatement measures. IPRs affect dirty and clean intermediates alike such that higher IPR enforcement may promote the transition to the clean technology, if this technology is productive enough. If the green technology is relatively unproductive, higher IPRs promote the dirty technology while pollution is increasing. As households are due to subsistence consumption subject to a hierarchy of needs, the level of IPR enforcement as well as the level of abatement measures depends on the state of technology and is increasing during economic development. Thus, if the incentive to enforce IPRs is low the level of abatement measures is also low. This argument provides a theoretical foundation for the observed clash of interests in international negotiation rounds regarding the harmonization of IPR protection and actions to combat climate change.

Patent Protection Policy and Firms’ Green Technology Innovation: Mediating Roles of Open Innovation and Human Capital

“…Based on the above analyses, recent literature has similarly investigated the relationship between IP protection and green innovation from the perspectives of R&D activities, external investment, and technology transfer. For example, Schaefer [15] argues that stronger IP protection will promote firms to actively develop green technologies if green technologies are more productive than other technologies. Cao et al [16] find that IP protection can promote green innovation by boosting firms' investment in R&D and attracting foreign investment entry.…”

How do FDI inflows curvilinearly affect carbon emissions? Threshold effects of energy service availability and cleanliness

“…Existing studies have explored the threshold factors from the perspectives of economy and legislation Jing et al, 2012;Qi et al, 2019;Y. Ren et al, 2021;Schaefer, 2017), but few focus on energy-related factors.…”

“…Second, in the process by which FDI inflows affect pollution emissions, the energy quality of the host country is also an important threshold factor (Patrick et al, 2012). Existing studies have explored the threshold factors from the perspectives of economy and legislation (Huang et al, 2021; Jing et al, 2012; Qi et al, 2019; Y. Ren et al, 2021; Schaefer, 2017), but few focus on energy‐related factors.…”

“…Second, the impact of intellectual property protection on this process appears to be a double threshold effect, which indicates that both overly low and overly high levels of intellectual property protection are not conducive to the emission reduction effect of FDI. On the one hand, intellectual property protection does help with green technology innovation, indicating that foreign investment or green technologies owned by foreign enterprises will be threatened without a sound intellectual property protection system (Schaefer, 2017). This is not conducive to host country enterprises obtaining green technology spillovers, resulting in higher carbon emission levels for local enterprises (Deng, Lu, Hong, Chen, & Yng, 2019).…”