This paper constructs a North-South quality ladder model in which foreign direct investment (FDI) is determined by the endogenous location choice of firms and examines analytically how strengthening patent protection in the South affects welfare in the South. Strengthening patent protection increases the Southfs welfare by enhancing innovation and FDI, but also allows the firms with patents to charge higher prices for their goods, which decreases welfare. However, the model shows that the former positive welfare effect overcomes the latter negative one, and introducing the strictest form of patent protection in the South, that is, harmonizing patent protection in the South with that in the North, may maximize welfare in the South as well as in the North.
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Paper provided by Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics and Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) in its series Discussion Papers in Economics and Business with number
09-24.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Ai-Ting Goh & Jacques Olivier, 2002.
"Optimal Patent Protection in a Two-Sector Economy,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1191-1214, November.
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