IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/62392.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

International Specialization in Research & Development

Author

Listed:
  • Evrin, Alperen

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the effects of implementing tighter Intellectual Property Rights in a model of International Trade. In my model, firms in different countries have the choice of committing their resources to introducing new products (product innovation) or to imitating and improving upon current products (process innovation). I analyze the impact of stronger patents on innovation decisions, overall welfare and the distribution of welfare among countries. I show that, depending on parameter values, firms in developed countries (North) may altogether specialize in product innovation or may attain incomplete specialization in the sense that some innovate and some imitate. Welfare analysis will depend on the degree of specialization. In the case of incomplete specialization, tighter IPRs increase the incentives for product innovation in the North but, at the same time, increase the imitation done in the South. This finding is contrary to the conventional argument that states the reverse for imitation rates. In the case of complete specialization, stronger patents do not affect the rate of product innovation but reduce the rate of imitation, and welfare is nonmonotonic in IPRs. Finally, I examine the case of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and predict that stronger patents will increase the FDI while lowering the wages worldwide.

Suggested Citation

  • Evrin, Alperen, 2013. "International Specialization in Research & Development," MPRA Paper 62392, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:62392
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62392/1/MPRA_paper_62392.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. G. M.P. Swann, 2009. "The Economics of Innovation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13211.
    2. Nancy T. Gallini, 1992. "Patent Policy and Costly Imitation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(1), pages 52-63, Spring.
    3. Hugo Hopenhayn & Gerard Llobet & Matthew Mitchell, 2006. "Rewarding Sequential Innovators: Prizes, Patents, and Buyouts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(6), pages 1041-1068, December.
    4. Acemoglu, Daron & Cao, Dan, 2015. "Innovation by entrants and incumbents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 255-294.
    5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    6. Suzanne Scotchmer, 1996. "Protecting Early Innovators: Should Second-Generation Products Be Patentable?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(2), pages 322-331, Summer.
    7. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1991. "Endogenous Product Cycles," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(408), pages 1214-1229, September.
    8. George Selgin & John Turner, 2006. "James Watt As Intellectual Monopolist: Comment On Boldrin And Levine," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1341-1348, November.
    9. Suzanne Scotchmer, 2004. "The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 415-437, October.
    10. Krugman, Paul, 1979. "A Model of Innovation, Technology Transfer, and the World Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(2), pages 253-266, April.
    11. Helpman, Elhanan, 1993. "Innovation, Imitation, and Intellectual Property Rights," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(6), pages 1247-1280, November.
    12. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2002. "Employment protection, international specialization, and innovation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 375-395, February.
    13. Gene M. Grossman & Edwin L.-C. Lai, 2004. "International Protection of Intellectual Property," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1635-1653, December.
    14. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, December.
    15. Raymond Vernon, 1966. "International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 80(2), pages 190-207.
    16. Orman, Cuneyt, 2015. "Organization of innovation and capital markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 94-114.
    17. Lee G. Branstetter & Raymond Fisman & C. Fritz Foley, 2006. "Do Stronger Intellectual Property Rights Increase International Technology Transfer? Empirical Evidence from U. S. Firm-Level Panel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 321-349.
    18. Boldrin,Michele & Levine,David K., 2010. "Against Intellectual Monopoly," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521127264.
    19. James Bessen & Eric Maskin, 2009. "Sequential innovation, patents, and imitation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(4), pages 611-635, December.
    20. Horowitz, Andrew W & Lai, Edwin L-C, 1996. "Patent Length and the Rate of Innovation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(4), pages 785-801, November.
    21. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1991. "Endogenous Product Cycles," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(408), pages 1214-1229, September.
    22. L. Kamran Bilir, 2011. "Patent Laws, Product Lifecycle Lengths, and the Global Sourcing Decisions of U.S. Multinationls," Discussion Papers 10-027, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    23. Yi Qian, 2007. "Do National Patent Laws Stimulate Domestic Innovation in a Global Patenting Environment? A Cross-Country Analysis of Pharmaceutical Patent Protection, 1978-2002," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 436-453, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kamal Saggi, 2016. "Trade, Intellectual Property Rights, and the World Trade Organization," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 16-00014, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    2. Yang, Xuebing, 2013. "Horizontal inventive step and international protection of intellectual property," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 338-355.
    3. Leonard F.S. Wang & Arijit Mukherjee, 2014. "Patent Protection, Innovation and Technology Licensing," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3-4), pages 245-254, December.
    4. Borota, Teodora, 2010. "Innovation and Imitation in a Model of North-South TradeRecent evidence on world trade patterns reveals North-South specialization across," Working Paper Series 2010:6, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    5. Rockett, Katharine, 2010. "Property Rights and Invention," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 315-380, Elsevier.
    6. Barbosa, Natália & Faria, Ana Paula, 2011. "Innovation across Europe: How important are institutional differences?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1157-1169.
    7. Chu, Angus C. & Cozzi, Guido & Galli, Silvia, 2014. "Stage-dependent intellectual property rights," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 239-249.
    8. Hong Hwang & Jollene Z. Wu & Eden S. H. Yu, 2016. "Innovation, Imitation and Intellectual Property Rights in Developing Countries," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 138-151, February.
    9. Bento Pedro, 2021. "Quantifying the Effects of Patent Protection on Innovation, Imitation, Growth, and Aggregate Productivity," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 1-35, January.
    10. Hudson, John & Minea, Alexandru, 2013. "Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Economic Development: A Unified Empirical Investigation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 66-78.
    11. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Hoang M. Luong & Mehmet Ugur, 2022. "Does intellectual property protection deliver economic benefits? A multi‐outcome meta‐regression analysis of the evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 1477-1509, December.
    12. Arijit Mukherjee & Uday Bhanu Sinha, 2013. "Patent Protection, Southern Innovation and Welfare in a North–South Trade Model," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(318), pages 248-273, April.
    13. Lai, Edwin L. -C., 1998. "International intellectual property rights protection and the rate of product innovation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 133-153, February.
    14. Ndubuisi, Gideon & Foster-McGregor, Neil, 2018. "Domestic intellectual property rights protection and the margins of bilateral exports," MERIT Working Papers 2018-035, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    15. Pol Antràs, 2005. "Incomplete Contracts and the Product Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1054-1073, September.
    16. Mark Schankerman & Florian Schuett, 2022. "Patent Screening, Innovation, and Welfare [Innovation, Reallocation, and Growth]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(4), pages 2101-2148.
    17. Joel Blit & Mauricio Zelaya, 2015. "Do Firms Respond to Stronger Patent Protection by Doing More R&D?," Working Papers 1501, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2015.
    18. Gancia, Gino & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2005. "Horizontal Innovation in the Theory of Growth and Development," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 111-170, Elsevier.
    19. Lorenczik, Christian & Newiak, Monique, 2012. "Imitation and innovation driven development under imperfect intellectual property rights," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1361-1375.
    20. Adolfo Cristóbal Campoamor, 2019. "Gradual trade liberalization in a North–South model of the product cycle," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 265-292, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Patent Policies; Foreign Direct Investment;

    JEL classification:

    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:62392. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.