Foreign Direct Investment, Intellectual Property Rights, and Productivity Growth
Using panel data for 57 countries over the period of 1995–2012, this paper investigates the impact of intellectual property rights (IPR) processes on productivity growth. The IPR processes are decomposed into three stages — innovation process, commercialization process, and protection process. The paper finds that better IPR protection is directly associated with productivity improvements only in developed economies. In addition, the contribution of IPR processes on growth through foreign direct investment (FDI) appears to be quite limited. Only inward FDI in developed countries which creates better innovative capability leads to higher growth. In connection with outward FDI, only the increase in IPR protection and commercialization are proven to improve productivity in the case of developing countries, particularly when the country acts as the investing country.