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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Alireza Naghavi (University of Bologna and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Chiara Strozzi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study theoretically and empirically the role of the interaction between skilled migration and intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection in determining innovation in developing countries (South). We show that although emigration from the South may directly result in the well-known concept of brain drain, it also causes a brain gain effect, the extent of which depends on the level of IPRs protection in the sending country. We argue this to come from a diaspora channel through which the knowledge acquired by emigrants abroad can flow back to the South and enhance the skills of the remaining workers there. By increasing the size of the innovation sector and the skill-intensity of emigration, IPRs protection makes it more likely for diaspora gains to dominate, thus facilitating a potential net brain gain. Our main theoretical insights are then tested empirically using a panel dataset of emerging and developing countries. The findings reveal a positive correlation between emigration and innovation in the presence of strong IPRs protection. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual property rights, Migration, Technology transfer, Brain gain, Diaspora |
| JEL: | O34 F22 O33 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2011.60&r=ipr |
| By: | Maria Comune (University of Siena and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Alireza Naghavi (University of Bologna and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Giovanni Prarolo (University of Bologna and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) |
| Abstract: | With the rise of the knowledge economy, delivering sound innovation policies requires a thorough understanding of how knowledge is produced and diffused. This paper takes a step to analyze a new form of globalization, the so-called system of Global Innovation Networks (GINs), to shed light on how the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) influences their creation and development. We focus on the role of IPR protection in fostering international innovative activities in emerging economies (South), such as China and India, and more generally, how IPRs affect the development of GINs between newly industrialized countries and OECD countries. Using both survey-based firm-level and country-level global data, we find IPRs to be an important determinant of participation in GINS from a Southern perspective. We find IPR protection at home and its harmonization across county pairs foster South-North formation of GINs. We also find that a stringent regime in the destination country discourages foreign international innovative activities that originate in NICs. Both levels of our analysis confirm the ICT industry, particularly the hardware segment, to rely on IPRs when engaging in the international outsourcing and offshoring of innovation or in patenting activities abroad. |
| Keywords: | Gravity Model, Information Communication Technology, Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, International collaborations, Networks |
| JEL: | D23 F53 O34 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2011.59&r=ipr |
| By: | Salzberger, Eli (University of Haifa) |
| Abstract: | The term "intellectual property" is a relatively a modern term, first used in its current meaning when the UN established the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1967. Beforehand laws around the world protected various aspects of informational goods - inventions and creations - using separate legal concepts, such as copyright, patents and trademarks, which were not perceived as property rights. This linguistic aspect is by no means anecdotal or marginal as it can be argued that the term "intellectual property" constituted its contemporary meaning including the economic analysis of informational goods and services, as can be demonstrated by the recent call to treat trade secrets not as a contractual agreement but as intellectual property (Epstein, 2005). This paper focuses on the normative analysis of IP rights and criticizes the implicit shift in economic analysis of IP from the incentives paradigm, which is founded upon the public good analysis of neo-classical micro-economic theory, to the new propriety paradigm, which is intellectually founded upon the tragedy of the commons literature. It further criticizes the dominant contemporary Law and Economics writings in this field as pre-assuming information to be an object of property, overlooking its fundamental differences from physical property and thus focusing on its management and maximization of value for its "owners" rather than on its initial justifications and its social value and contribution to innovation, growth and progress. |
| Keywords: | Law; intellectual property; growth; incentives |
| JEL: | K11 O31 O34 O43 |
| Date: | 2011–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0177&r=ipr |
| By: | Hoewer, Daniel; Schmidt, Tobias; Sofka, Wolfgang |
| Abstract: | Information economics has emerged as the primary theoretical lens for framing financing decisions in firm R&D investment. Successful outcomes of R&D projects are either ex-ante impossible to predict or the information is asymmetrically distributed between inventors and investors. As a result, bank lending for firm R&D has been rare. However, firms can signal the value of their R&D activities and as a result reduce the information deficits that block the availability of external funding. In this study we focus on three types of signals: Firm's existing patent stock, the presences of a joint venture investor and whether the firm has received a government R&D subsidy. We argue theoretically that all of these signals have the potential to alter the risk assessment of the firm's main bank. Additionally, we explore heterogeneities in these risk assessments arising from the industry level and the main bank's portfolio. We test our theoretical predictions for a sample of more than 7,000 firm observations in Germany over a multi-year period. Our theoretical predictions are only supported for firms' past patent activity while other signals fail to alter the risk assessment of a firm's main bank. Besides, we confirm that the risk evaluation is not randomly distributed across bank-firm dyads but depends on industry and bank characteristics. -- |
| Keywords: | Innovation,banking,information asymmetry |
| JEL: | D82 G30 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdp1:201119&r=ipr |
| By: | Gerald A. Carlino; Jake K. Carr; Robert M. Hunt; Tony E. Smith |
| Abstract: | The authors study the location and productivity of more than 1,000 research and development (R&D) labs located in the Northeast corridor of the U.S. Using a variety of spatial econometric techniques, they find that these labs are substantially more concentrated in space than the underlying distribution of manufacturing activity. Ripley's K-function tests over a variety of spatial scales reveal that the strongest evidence of concentration occurs at two discrete distances: one at about one-quarter of a mile and another at about 40 miles. These findings are consistent with empirical research that suggests that some spillovers depreciate very rapidly with distance, while others operate at the spatial scale of labor markets. The authors also find that R&D labs in some industries (e.g., chemicals, including drugs) are substantially more spatially concentrated than are R&D labs as a whole.> > Tests using local K-functions reveal several concentrations of R&D labs (Boston, New York-Northern New Jersey, Philadelphia-Wilmington, and Washington, DC) that appear to represent research clusters. The authors verify this conjecture using significance-maximizing techniques (e.g., SATSCAN) that also address econometric issues related to "multiple testing" and spatial autocorrelation.> > The authors develop a new procedure for identifying clusters — the multiscale core-cluster approach — to identify labs that appear to be clustered at a variety of spatial scales. They document that while locations in these clusters are often related to basic infrastructure, such as access to major roads, there is significant variation in the composition of labs across these clusters. Finally, the authors show that R&D labs located in clusters defined by this approach are, all else equal, substantially more productive in terms of the patents or citation-weighted patents they receive.> |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:11-42&r=ipr |
| By: | Müller, Harry; Dilger, Alexander |
| Abstract: | Die Analyse und der Vergleich des Outputs wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Fachbereiche erfahren eine anhaltend hohe Aufmerksamkeit. Evaluationen und Rankings schaffen für die Hochschule als Anbieter von Forschungs- und Lehrleistungen mehr Klarheit über den eigenen Output und verringern die Informationsasymmetrien auf den Märkten, auf denen die Hochschule mit potentiellen Studierenden oder den Nachfragern von Forschungsergebnissen interagiert. Das bekannteste Forschungsleistungsranking betriebswirtschaftlicher Fachbereiche ist 2009 vom Handelsblatt vorgelegt worden. Dessen Methodologie erweist sich allerdings sowohl hinsichtlich der Datenbasis als auch der verwendeten Aggregationsmethode als nicht unproblematisch. Bezugnehmend auf diese Kritik wird ein zitationsbasiertes Ranking mit Google Scholar entworfen. Es soll den aktuellen Output der betriebswirtschaftlichen Fachbereiche in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz abbilden. Für die Rangfolgebildung werden drei alternative Kriterien vorgeschlagen. Im Anschluss sollen mittels einer ökonometrischen Schätzung mögliche Einflussfaktoren auf die Platzierungen identifiziert werden. Abschließend werden die Daten zudem auf der Ebene der (Bundes-)Länder aggregiert, um auch diese hinsichtlich der in ihnen erbrachten betriebswirtschaftlichen Forschungsleistungen miteinander zu vergleichen. -- The analysis and comparison of the academic output of business departments receive a sustained high attention. For universities as producers of services in research and teaching, evaluations and rankings provide more clarity about their own output. Furthermore, they reduce information asymmetries in the markets on which the university interacts with prospective students and users of research. The best-known research ranking of business departments has been published by the newspaper Handelsblatt in 2009. Its methodology, however, is problematic in regard of the underlying data base and the methods of aggregation. Referring to this critique our paper outlines a citation based approach with Google Scholar. Its purpose is to reflect the current research output of business departments in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and we propose three alternative aggregation methods. Furthermore, we identify possible influencing factors. Finally, the data gets aggregated at the level of (federal) states in order to compare the different jurisdictions according to the business research produced within. |
| JEL: | I23 I20 A11 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:umiodp:82011&r=ipr |
| By: | Waheed, Abdul (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | The impact of size and competition on firm-level innovative activities has obtained considerable attention in developed countries, but the focus is still lacking in developing world. This paper is an attempt to contribute in this direction by including 14 Latin American countries, and by using Enterprise Survey data of the World Bank. We consider both input and output innovation to observe the influence of firm size and of market concentration on innovative activities, and to interrogate the differences in influences of innovation determinants in different size classes and competition statuses. Our analysis reveals that employment increases the likelihood of R&D and product innovation, and its influence on R&D expenditures is positive but at less than proportionate rate. We find that product market competition increases the probability of both R&D decision and innovation output, but it has no influence on R&D intensity. We observe no relationship between R&D expenditures per employee and product innovation. Country and industry differences also contribute substantially towards firm-level R&D activities and product innovation. Moreover, large or small firms do no tend to be advantageous for employment and competition in order to influence R&D activities; however, for product innovation, competition is a more significant stimulus for large firms compared to small ones. Our results suggest that firms' R&D productivity is independent of size classes and competition environments. All of the determinants (of innovation) are jointly observed to have different effects, for large and small firms, as explanatory factors of both R&D intensity and product innovation, and for different competition environments only for product innovation. |
| Keywords: | R&D, Product innovation, Firm size, market competition |
| JEL: | L11 L12 L13 O32 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2011052&r=ipr |