Intellectual property rights protection and quality upgrading: Evidence from China

Xueyin Song, Xianhai Huang and Tao Qing

Economic Modelling, 2021, vol. 103, issue C

Abstract: This study analyzes the effect of domestic and foreign intellectual property rights (IPR) protection on quality upgrading. We build a tractable model of heterogeneous firms, endogenous innovation scale, and endogenous quality choice. The model shows that IPR protection affects firms’ export quality through two opposing channels: the innovation and threshold effects, which promote and inhibit quality upgrading, respectively. We examine the overall effect of these channels using firm-level data from China across 2000–2007. We find that: (ⅰ) both domestic and foreign IPR protection positively affect export quality upgrading, so innovation effect is dominant; (ⅱ) the impact of domestic IPR protection is greater than that of foreign IPR protection; and (iii) various methods, such as generalized method of moments and difference in differences, are used to test the conclusions of this study, indicating robust results.

Keywords: IPR protection; Innovation effect; Threshold effect; Quality upgrading (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C4 F13 L5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s0264999321001917

DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2021.105602

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