Intellectual Property Protection and Technology Licensing: The Case of Developing Countries
Prof. Sunil Kanwar, Delhi School of Economics
This paper studies the influence of stronger patent protection on technology licensing. Using panel data for the post-TRIPs period 1995-2005, and focusing on developing countries, I am able to correct for any endogeneity biases that may bedevil estimation of this relationship. Employing a more inclusive index of patent protection than hitherto, which better accounts for the enforcement and implementation environment, I find that stronger protection is associated with increased royalty and license fee payments by developing countries, implying greater technology transfer into these countries. The significance of the protection variable is found to be driven by the sub-index of patent coverage, which makes eminent sense in view of the substantial increase in the coverage of patentable subject matter by developing countries post- TRIPs. The economic significance of the protection variable also appears to be substantial, with ceteris paribus changes in this variable accounting for technology inflows of about US $2.5 billion to US $3.2 billion (base year 2000) in the post-TRIPs sample period.
About the speaker
Sunil Kanwar is a Professor of Economics at Delhi School of Economics and has held numerous visiting fellowships at Yale University, University of Bonn, University of Munich, University of Goettingen, University of California San Diego and Vanderbilt University. Sunil has a PhD in Agricultural economics from University of California at Berkeley and his research focuses on Development Economics; Intellectual Property Rights; Labour Economics and Agrarian Issues. He has widely published in international journals including Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Economics Letters, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Policy Modeling and Applied Economics among others. Prof. Kanwar served on several editorial boards of journals and is currently a member of the editorial board of Indian Economic Review.
Venue: A1.22 (Tongersestraat 53)
Date: 12 June 2013
Time: 12:00 - 13:30 CEST
