Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Growth

Economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity: Some cross-country evidence

“…Huge literatures in economic history, on intellectual property rights, and on innovation stress the importance for entrepreneurial activity at the micro level and economic development at the macro level of property rights being well-defined and enforced (e.g., Rosenberg and Birdzell 1986;North et al 2000;Falvey et al 2004;Glaeser et al 2004). Well-defined and enforced property rights reduce the transaction costs of carrying out the commercial experimentation that we associate with entrepreneurship (Rosenberg 1992), because well-defined property rights usually imply that contracting costs are relatively low, and it is thus less costly to search for, negotiate with and conclude bargains with owners of those inputs that enter into entrepreneurial ventures.…”

Determinants of firms’ patenting or not patenting behaviors

“…Experts agree that intellectual property protection is a necessary and very important mechanism for protecting firm competitiveness (Amara et al, 2008;Teece, 2000), since risks of unanticipated knowledge leakage or imitation are always present (Falvey et al, 2006). Companies gain effective technology protection through intellectual property laws and other technology protection actions that mitigate such risks as firms commercialize innovative products in the marketplace (Cohen et al, 2000), J.…”

High-tech firms’ international acquisition performance: The influence of host country property rights protection

“…Acquisition is an effective governance structure to decrease information and knowledge leakage and thus to lower the operational and transaction costs (Allred & Park, 2007;Falvey et al, 2006;Hart & Moore, 1990;Henisz, 2000;Jain, 2002;Maskus, 2000;OECD, 2009;Peng, 2001Peng, , 2004Williamson, 1975;Zhao, 2006). In addition, targets have accumulated various human capital and social capital, such as cultivating good relationships with local government officials, and these help to further decrease the transaction costs and uncertainties there (Peng, 2003).…”

“…High-tech firms have serious concerns about weak PRP in developing countries; this is largely because they are likely to encounter knowledge leakage there and thus shorten their time horizon of capitalizing on their core technologies (Allred & Park, 2007;Falvey, Foster, & Greenaway, 2006;Hart & Moore, 1990;Henisz, 2000;Jain, 2002;Maskus, 2000;OECD, 2009;Peng, 2001Peng, , 2004Williamson, 1975). However, in recent decades high-tech firms have been increasingly investing in these countries through acquisitions of local targets (OECD, 2009).…”