IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/unumer/2014077.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Democratizing intellectual property systems : how corruption hinders equal opportunities for firms

Author

Listed:
  • Paunov C.

    (UNU-MERIT)

Abstract

This paper analyses how corruption affects firms ownership of intellectual property titles that relate to firms technological, organizational and further innovation efforts quality certificates and patents. Using firm-level data covering 48 developing and emerging countries, we show corruption reduced the likelihood of firms seeking quality certificates. Smaller firms were more affected by corruption and benefited less from higher levels of trust in their business environment. Corruption did not have impacts on the quality certificate ownership of exporters, foreign- and publicly-owned firms. Firms machinery investments were also negatively affected. By contrast, we do not find effects on firms ownership of patents.

Suggested Citation

  • Paunov C., 2014. "Democratizing intellectual property systems : how corruption hinders equal opportunities for firms," MERIT Working Papers 2014-077, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
  • Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2014077
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2014/wp2014-077.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mendonca, Sandro & Pereira, Tiago Santos & Godinho, Manuel Mira, 2004. "Trademarks as an indicator of innovation and industrial change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1385-1404, November.
    2. John McMillan & Christopher Woodruff, 1999. "Interfirm Relationships and Informal Credit in Vietnam," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1285-1320.
    3. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    4. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt & Susanne Prantl, 2015. "Patent rights, product market reforms, and innovation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 223-262, September.
    5. Toke S. Aidt, 2009. "Corruption, institutions, and economic development," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(2), pages 271-291, Summer.
    6. Ulrich Schmoch, 2003. "Service marks as novel innovation indicator," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 149-156, August.
    7. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    8. Nathan Nunn, 2007. "Relationship-Specificity, Incomplete Contracts, and the Pattern of Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 569-600.
    9. Jakob Svensson, 2003. "Who Must Pay Bribes and How Much? Evidence from a Cross Section of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 207-230.
    10. Bianca Clausen & Aart Kraay & Zsolt Nyiri, 2011. "Corruption and Confidence in Public Institutions: Evidence from a Global Survey," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 25(2), pages 212-249.
    11. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "Financial Dependence and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 559-586, June.
    12. Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "How Taxing is Corruption on International Investors?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 1-11, February.
    13. Dean Karlan & Markus Mobius & Tanya Rosenblat & Adam Szeidl, 2009. "Trust and Social Collateral," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1307-1361.
    14. Ayyagari, Meghana & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2010. "Are innovating firms victims or perpetrators ? tax evasion, bribe payments, and the role of external finance in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5389, The World Bank.
    15. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Weill, Laurent, 2010. "Is Corruption an Efficient Grease?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 244-259, March.
    16. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2009. "Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1403-1448.
    17. Chor, Davin & Manova, Kalina, 2012. "Off the cliff and back? Credit conditions and international trade during the global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 117-133.
    18. Fan, C. Simon & Lin, Chen & Treisman, Daniel, 2009. "Political decentralization and corruption: Evidence from around the world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 14-34, February.
    19. Rita Almeida & Ana Margarida Fernandes, 2008. "Openness and Technological Innovations in Developing Countries: Evidence from Firm-Level Surveys," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(5), pages 701-727.
    20. Terlaak, Ann & King, Andrew A., 2006. "The effect of certification with the ISO 9000 Quality Management Standard: A signaling approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 579-602, August.
    21. Caroline Paunov, 2013. "Innovation and Inclusive Development: A Discussion of the Main Policy Issues," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2013/1, OECD Publishing.
    22. Chor, Davin, 2010. "Unpacking sources of comparative advantage: A quantitative approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 152-167, November.
    23. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç‐Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2005. "Financial and Legal Constraints to Growth: Does Firm Size Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 137-177, February.
    25. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 526-556, June.
    26. Alesina, Alberto & Angeletos, George-Marios, 2005. "Corruption, inequality, and fairness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1227-1244, October.
    27. Kevin M. Murphy & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 2008. "Why Is Rent-Seeking So Costly to Growth?," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 213-218, Springer.
    28. Guellec, Dominique & van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno, 2007. "The Economics of the European Patent System: IP Policy for Innovation and Competition," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199216987.
    29. Malmberg, Claes, 2005. "Trademarks Statistics as Innovation Indicator? - A Micro Study," Papers in Innovation Studies 2005/17, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    30. Avinash K. Dixit, 2015. "How Business Community Institutions Can Help Fight Corruption," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(suppl_1), pages 25-47.
    31. Fisman, Raymond & Svensson, Jakob, 2007. "Are corruption and taxation really harmful to growth? Firm level evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 63-75, May.
    32. De Rosa, Donato & Gooroochurn, Nishaal & Görg, Holger, 2010. "Corruption and productivity firm-level evidence from the BEEPS survey," Kiel Working Papers 1632, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    33. Mansfield, Edwin & Schwartz, Mark & Wagner, Samuel, 1981. "Imitation Costs and Patents: An Empirical Study," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(364), pages 907-918, December.
    34. Terziovski, Milé & Guerrero, Jose-Luis, 2014. "ISO 9000 quality system certification and its impact on product and process innovation performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 197-207.
    35. Sakakibara, Mariko & Branstetter, Lee, 2001. "Do Stronger Patents Induce More Innovation? Evidence from the 1988 Japanese Patent Law Reforms," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 77-100, Spring.
    36. Terziovski, Mile & Power, Damien & Sohal, Amrik S., 2003. "The longitudinal effects of the ISO 9000 certification process on business performance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 580-595, May.
    37. David Dranove & Ginger Zhe Jin, 2010. "Quality Disclosure and Certification: Theory and Practice," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(4), pages 935-963, December.
    38. Christine Greenhalgh & Mark Rogers, 2010. "Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Economic Growth," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 0, number 9221.
    39. Rauch, James E., 1999. "Networks versus markets in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 7-35, June.
    40. Bockstette, Valerie & Chanda, Areendam & Putterman, Louis, 2002. "States and Markets: The Advantage of an Early Start," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 347-369, December.
    41. Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
    42. Olken, Benjamin A., 2009. "Corruption perceptions vs. corruption reality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 950-964, August.
    43. Jean-Jacques Dethier & Maximilian Hirn & Stéphane Straub, 2011. "Explaining Enterprise Performance in Developing Countries with Business Climate Survey Data," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 26(2), pages 258-309, August.
    44. 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.
    45. Levin, Richard C, 1988. "Appropriability, R&D Spending, and Technological Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 424-428, May.
    46. Manova, Kalina, 2008. "Credit constraints, equity market liberalizations and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 33-47, September.
    47. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    48. Valentine Millot, 2009. "Trademarks as an Indicator of Product and Marketing Innovations," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2009/6, OECD Publishing.
    49. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    50. Lanjouw, Jean O & Schankerman, Mark, 2004. "Protecting Intellectual Property Rights: Are Small Firms Handicapped?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 45-74, April.
    51. Moulton, Brent R, 1990. "An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Unit," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 334-338, May.
    52. Vial, Virginie & Hanoteau, Julien, 2010. "Corruption, Manufacturing Plant Growth, and the Asian Paradox: Indonesian Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 693-705, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bas, M. & Paunov, C., 2014. "The unequal effect of India's industrial liberalization on firms' decision to innovate: Do business conditions matter?," MERIT Working Papers 2014-044, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    2. Paunov, Caroline & Rollo, Valentina, 2016. "Has the Internet Fostered Inclusive Innovation in the Developing World?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 587-609.

    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. Paunov, Caroline, 2016. "Corruption's asymmetric impacts on firm innovation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 216-231.
    2. Claire Giordano, Paloma Lopez-Garcia, 2018. "Is corruption efficiency-enhancing? A case study of the Central and Eastern European region," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 15(1), pages 119-164, June.
    3. Ferris, Stephen P. & Hanousek, Jan & Tresl, Jiri, 2021. "Corporate profitability and the global persistence of corruption," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Jun Wen & Mingbo Zheng & Gen-Fu Feng & Sunwu Winfred Chen & Chun-Ping Chang, 2018. "Corruption And Innovation: Linear And Nonlinear Investigations Of Oecd Countries," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(01), pages 103-129, July.
    5. Krisztina Kis-Katos & Günther G. Schulze, 2013. "Corruption in Southeast Asia: a survey of recent research," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 27(1), pages 79-109, May.
    6. Liu, Tingting & Liu, Yu & Ullah, Barkat & Wei, Zuobao & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2021. "The dark side of transparency in developing countries: The link between financial reporting practices and corruption," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    7. Hanousek, Jan & Shamshur, Anastasiya & Tresl, Jiri, 2019. "Firm efficiency, foreign ownership and CEO gender in corrupt environments," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 344-360.
    8. Gaygysyz Ashyrov & Jaan Masso, 2020. "Does corruption affect local and foreign-owned companies differently? Evidence from the BEEPS survey," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 306-329, April.
    9. Athanasouli, Daphne & Goujard, Antoine, 2015. "Corruption and management practices: Firm level evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 1014-1034.
    10. Colin C. Williams & Abbi M. Kedir, 2016. "The Impacts Of Corruption On Firm Performance: Some Lessons From 40 African Countries," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(04), pages 1-18, December.
    11. Julien Hanoteau & Virginie Vial, 2014. "Grease or sand the wheel? The effects of individual bribe payments on aggregate productivity growth," EcoMod2014 6685, EcoMod.
    12. Kouramoudou Keita & Hannu Laurila, 2016. "Efficient Corruption? Testing the hypothesis in African countries," Working Papers 1699, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    13. Hanousek, Jan & Shamshur, Anastasiya & Tresl, Jiri, 2015. "Is bread gained by deceit sweet to a man? Corruption and firm efficiency," CEPR Discussion Papers 10951, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Qing Liu & Ruosi Lu & Xiangjun Ma, 2015. "Corruption, Financial Resources and Exports," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 1023-1043, November.
    15. De Rosa Donato & Gooroochurn Nishaal & Görg Holger, 2015. "Corruption and Productivity: Firm-level Evidence," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(2), pages 115-138, April.
    16. Dzhumashev, Ratbek, 2014. "Corruption and growth: The role of governance, public spending, and economic development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 202-215.
    17. Lee, Mina & Mutlu, Canan & Lee, Seung-Hyun, 2023. "Bribery and Firm Growth: Sensemaking in CEE and Post-Soviet Countries," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(1).
    18. Xuejun Jiang & Louise Lu, 2021. "How do US investors perceive the risk of local political corruption? Evidence from acquisition announcement," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(1), pages 885-912, March.
    19. Nurullah Gur, 2012. "Financial Constraints, Quality of Institutions and Firm Size: What Do Perceptions Tell Us?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 2(2), pages 17-36, December.
    20. Breen, Michael & Gillanders, Robert, 2017. "Does Corruption Ease the Burden of Regulation? National and Subnational Evidence," MPRA Paper 82088, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; Intellectual Property Rights;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights

    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:unm:unumer:2014077. 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: Ad Notten (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meritnl.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.