The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Economic Growth

Abstract

Intellectual property rights are an important element of the new theories of endogenous growth. Because of their special relationship to human capital, intellectual property protection may influence innovative activity and technological progress in critical ways, An important question for many countries is whether stricter enforcement of inteliectual property is a good stratesl for economic growth. This paper exariines the role of intellectual property rights in economic growtl\ utilizing crosscountry data on patent protection, trade regime, and country-specific characteristics. The evidence suggests that intellectual property protection is positively related to economic growth. These effects appear to be slightly stronger in relatively open economies and are robust to both the measure of openness used and to other alternative model specifications.

International trade, economic growth and intellectual property rights: A panel data study of developed and developing countries

“…This variable is created using data for imports of capital goods from developed nations from various issues of the Commodity Trade Statistics published by the United Nations. The 9 A number of interesting studies examine the relationship between property rights in general and economic growth (Torstensson, 1994;Svensson, 1994;Sachs and Warner, 1995), as well as the specific relationship between intellectual property rights and economic growth (Gould and Gruben, 1996;Park and Ginarte, 1997;Thompson and Rushing, 1999). The results in these studies are mixed and use various measures of general property rights and IPRs.…”

Institutional development and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China

“…Studies with cross country data have established the importance of intellectual property rights protection for economic growth (Gould and Gruben, 1996;Park and Ginarte, 1997). Hasan et al (2009) use the number of trademark applications in Chinese provinces as a proxy for the awareness of property rights and show that it is related to growth rates.…”

Intellectual Property Protection and Technology Licensing: The Case of Developing Countries

“…While none of the competing measures of openness available in the literature are entirely satisfactory in this regard, we use the black market exchange rate premium (see Gould and Gruben 1996; and the references cited therein). This is defined as the ratio of the black market exchange rate to the official exchange rate (BMP).…”