Trade and Intellectual Property Rights in the Agricultural Seed Sector

Derek Eaton

No 51782, 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has continued to be fiercely debated between North and South, particularly with respect to its provisions for the agricultural sector. Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement requires WTO member countries to offer some form of intellectual property protection for new plant varieties, either in the form of patents (common in the U.S.) or plant breeder’s rights (PBR). This paper analyses the effects of the introduction of PBRs in almost 70 importing countries on the value of exports of agricultural seeds and planting material from 10 exporting EU countries, including all principal traditional exporters of seeds, as well as the US. A fixed effects quantile regression model, based on the general specification for the gravity model for international trade, is estimated using panel data covering 19 years (1989-2007) of export flows in order to assess the effect of International Convention on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) membership on seed imports. Basing inference on the panel bootstrap, we find no significant effect from UPOV membership on seed imports.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Industrial Organization; International Relations/Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29
Date: 2009-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/51782/files/Eaton_iaae2009v29jun09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Trade and Intellectual Property Rights in the Agricultural Seed Sector (2013)
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:ags:iaae09:51782

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.51782

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China from International Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().