Optimal Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Humanitarian Assistance during and International Health Emergency

Drusilla Brown () and George Norman ()

No 416, Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University from Department of Economics, Tufts University

Abstract: We analyze policy options during an international health emergency to provide consumers in least developed countries access to patented life-extending pharmaceuticals. We show that a properly specified tariff against reexports achieves optimal price dispersion and is shown to depend on the nature of demand, product development costs and humanitarian concerns by western citizens for patients inside a health emergency zone. A tariff dominates regional exhaustion for achieving optimal price dispersion, improves the efficiency properties of a patent for covering product development cost and is a more efficient tool for internalizing a humanitarian externality than a targeted consumption subsidy.

Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights; AIDS; Developing Countries; WTO (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F12 F13 F23 I11 L65 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tuf:tuftec:0416

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