nep-ipr 2016-05-08 papers

on Intellectual Property Rights

Issue of 2016–05–08
one paper chosen by
Giovanni Battista Ramello, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”

Quantifying the Effects of Patent Protection on Innovation, Imitation, Growth, and Aggregate Productivity By Pedro Bento

Quantifying the Effects of Patent Protection on Innovation, Imitation, Growth, and Aggregate Productivity

By:	Pedro Bento (Texas A&M University, Department of Economics)
Abstract:	I develop a general equilibrium model in which patent protection can increase or decrease the costs of sequential innovation, original innovation, and imitation. Depending on these relative effects, protection can in theory increase or decrease markups, imitation, innovation, growth, and aggregate productivity. I discipline the model using data from several different sources, and find that weakening protection in the U.S. would lead to no change in markups and imitation, no change in long-run growth, a more than doubling of the number of firms, and an increase in aggregate productivity of 9 percent.
Keywords:	patent protection, firm size, productivity, innovation, imitation, competition
JEL:	O1 O3 O4
Date:	2016–04–11
URL:	https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:txm:wpaper:20160411-001

This nep-ipr issue is ©2016 by Giovanni Battista Ramello. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.

General information on the NEP project can be found at https://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.

NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the Griffith Business School of Griffith University in Australia.