Impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Regime on income inequality: An Econometric Analysis

Swati Saini and Meeta Mehra ()

Economics Bulletin, 2018, vol. 38, issue 4, 1703-1719

Abstract: The theory predicts that IPRs tend to raise income inequality by generating a more skewed distribution of wages. Stronger IPRs increase the demand for skilled labor force as it raises the return on R&D activities. This causes a relative increase in skilled labor wages, creating a wage bias in favor of skilled labor against unskilled labor, thus aggravating income inequality within a country. Using dynamic panel data techniques and a sample of 55 countries over 1980-2011, we examine the impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) on income distribution of a country. Our results indicate that the impact of IPRs on income distribution is contingent upon level of development of a country.Strengthening of IPRs increases income inequality in countries with higher level of development having higher ability to innovate.

Keywords: Developing countries; Globalization; Inequality; Intellectual Property Rights. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F5 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-10
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Impact of Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Regime on Income Inequality: An Econometric Analysis (2016)
Working Paper: Impact of strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Regime on income inequality: An econometric analysis (2014)
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