Regulation of intellectual property rights and trade

Abstract

This thesis consists of three essays on the regulation of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and trade in open economies. The rst chapter investigates the di erences in Intellectual Property Rights between countries. The analysis of a cross-country panel reveals that the protection of IPRs is higher in countries that are (i) richer, (ii) more productive in R&D and (iii) more open to trade. It is then shown that the rst two facts can be explained in a model where innovations are a global public good and where demand for innovations is non-homothetic in income. The second chapter addresses the third observation. If trade is driven by large di erences in productivities across countries and sectors then having strong IPR protection can become more bene cial for the individual country, since a part of the associated costs are passed onto the trading partners. The third chapter aims to explain why and when countries link agreements on trade with agreements that regulate the provision of global public goods. It shows that a linkage is particularly attractive if countries are di erent in size.