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Impact of Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Regime on Income Inequality: An Econometric Analysis

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  • Swati Saini
  • Meeta Keswani Mehra

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on within-country income inequality for a cross-section of 65 developed and developing countries for the time period 1995- 2009. The results indicate that strengthening of IPRs has led to an increase in income inequality in WTO member developing countries after they started modifying their national IPR regimes to conform to the TRIPs requirements. IPRs tend to raise income inequality by generating a more skewed distribution of wages. Moreover, the effect on inequality is more pronounced for developing countries that are experiencing higher per capita GDP growth rates. As for the developed countries included in the sample, the analysis seems to suggest that IPRs have led to a decline in income inequality over the study period.

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  • Swati Saini & Meeta Keswani Mehra, 2016. "Impact of Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Regime on Income Inequality: An Econometric Analysis," Working Papers id:10450, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:10450
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    2. Christian Kiedaisch, 2021. "Growth and welfare effects of intellectual property rights when consumers differ in income," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1121-1170, November.
    3. Thanos Fragkandreas, 2022. "Three Decades of Research on Innovation and Inequality: Causal Scenarios, Explanatory Factors, and Suggestions," Working Papers 60, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Feb 2022.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Income Inequality; Econometric Analysis; developing countries; per capita; GDP growth rates; India.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • F5 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy

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