The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties

Suzanne Scotchmer

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2004, vol. 20, issue 2, 415-437

Abstract: Intellectual property treaties create two types of obligations: for national treatment of foreign inventors and for certain harmonized protections. I investigate both the incentive to join such treaties and the incentive to harmonize. As compared to an equilibrium in which the countries' policy makers make independent choices, harmonization will generally strengthen protections. This analysis recognizes that public sponsorship is sometimes an efficient alternative to intellectual property. However, there are no institutions to harmonize public spending, and there are no international mechanisms to repatriate the spillovers it generates. As a consequence, there may be too little public sponsorship and too much intellectual property. A country's inclination to strengthen harmonized protections will depend both on its innovativeness (positively) and on the size of its domestic market (negatively). Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (65)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: The political economy of intellectual property treaties (2003)
Working Paper: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties (2003)
Working Paper: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties (2002)
Working Paper: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties (2002)
Working Paper: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties (2001)
Working Paper: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties (2001)
Working Paper: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Treaties (2001)
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:oup:jleorg:v:20:y:2004:i:2:p:415-437

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization is currently edited by Andrea Prat

More articles in The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().