Innovation, technology transfer and the international regulation of patents and trade secrets

Michael A. Klein and Yibai Yang

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025, vol. 236, issue C

Abstract: We develop a North-South endogenous growth model in which innovative Northern firms choose a patent, secrecy mix to protect against imitation by Southern firms. Southern imitators always have access to publicly disclosed patented information, but gain access to secret information only when an innovator transfers production to the South. We identify conditions under which strengthening Southern patent protection reduces global innovation, technology transfer and Southern welfare by decreasing the relative profit associated with producing in the South. Our analysis suggests that treating intellectual property rights (IPRs) as a single entity obscures important differences in the economic implications of international standards in distinct forms of IPRs.

Keywords: Innovation; Intellectual property rights; Patents; Trade secrets; International technology transfer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F23 O31 O34 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268125002094
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:236:y:2025:i:c:s0167268125002094

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107090

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().