Brad shares his full name with us:
>Brad "I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of
>>crowds" DeLong
Geez, what a pity you're an economist then, Brad!
BTW, do you agree with Abbott's pronouncement that "[H]igh levels of IPRs protection would Š strengthen developing country economies. New IPRs infrastructures would encourage local innovation as developing country inventors were enabled to exploit the fruits of their own labor. Foreign enterprises would be more willing to transfer technology as it became protected under local law. Foreign direct investment would increase as local conditions became more technology protection-friendly"?
-Is lack of money at all a factor in the propensity of firms in developing countries to do R&D - I mean, what does 'encouragement' really amount to?
-Did Schumpeter have a point at all when he said competing companies (especially smaller domestic ones) are often less likely to invest in such things than ones protected from competition? This matters if the 'monopoly rights' conferred by the IPR regime always get extended to outside firms, no?
-Would cutting-edge technology leave the firm which holds the patent just because its IP was proteceted, even if its deployment might constitute enhanced competition for that very firm?
-Is this why so high a proportion of technology transfer actually occurs within the firewalls of MNEs?
-Is money that leaves the country due to the price of goods protected by 20-year patents not the very money that might be left over for local R&D?
- Does it matter that corporations have the same legal-entity status as human beings, so it is generally they who hold the patent, and generally they who are the price-makers when it comes to acquiring patents from yer actual inventors, and generally only they who can afford to turn invention into innovation?
I mean, Abbott's being just a tad disingenuous here, doncha think? Seems to me at least some of the reasons Srinivasan finds that "[m]ost of the gainers from TRIPS are in rich developed countries and only a few, if any, in poor countries" might be found in the above list ...
Cheers, Rob.