On the fee elasticity of the demand for trademarks in Europe

Benedikt Herz and Malwina Mejer

Oxford Economic Papers, 2016, vol. 68, issue 4, 1039-1061

Abstract: Over the last 20 years there has been a surge in national trademark applications in Europe. This increase in filings has been interpreted as a sign of increased innovative performance. In this paper, we argue that the explanation is much simpler. First, using a novel dataset, we document that trademark filing fees have been steadily decreasing and converging across countries in Europe. Second, using dynamic panel data econometrics, we find that national trademark filings are price-sensitive: a fee decrease by 10% increases filings at an office by about 10.5%. These estimates suggest that a substantial proportion of the rise in filing numbers can be explained by lower fees. We also document that trademark filings at national offices in Europe became more elastic after the mid-1990s. Arguably, this is because the European Community Trademark became available as an attractive alternative to national filings in 1996 and increased the price-sensitivity of applicants.

JEL-codes: O34 O38 O52 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpw035 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:oxecpp:v:68:y:2016:i:4:p:1039-1061.

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

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().