Intellectual Property Rights, Trade Agreements, and International Trade

MARCO DUEÑAS; MERCEDES CAMPI

Estrasburgo

Conferencia; EMAEE 2017: 10th European Meeting on Applied Evolutionary Economics. "Creativity, Innovation and Economic Dynamics"; 2017

Université de Strasbourg y International J.A. Schumpeter Society

The global process of strengthening and harmonization of intellectual property rights (IPRs) systems has been intensified in the last twenty years by the signing of different types of trade agreements (TAs) that include intellectual property (IP) chapters. This paper provides a first exploration of whether and how the signing of TAs with IP provisions influences bilateral trade of the signatory countries. We use matching econometrics in order to compare the effect of TAs with IPRs chapters and TAs with no IP chapters with a control group of countries which did not signed TAs. In addition, using a gravity model, we estimate the impact of TAs and TAs with IP chapters on bilateral trade flows and trade of low- and high-IP intensive products. We found that both types of TAs increase bilateral trade. However, these effects are heterogeneous for countries of different development level and products of different IP intensity. We found a clear positive effect for developed countries while the benefits for developing countries are not obvious. This raises the question of whether trade gains can compensate the effort related with IP reforms.