内生的知识产权保护与长期经济增长

Endogenous Strength of Intellectual Property Rights and Long-run Growth

政府是推动知识产权保护的重要力量,政府可以通过选择对知识产权保护的投入进而决定知识产权保护程度。本文在一个研发为基础(R&D-based)的内生增长经济中引入模仿和知识产权保护,进而考察了知识产权保护与经济增长的关系。研究发现,知识产权保护程度与经济增长率之间存在一个倒U型的关系,其原因是知识产权保护一方面降低了模仿的可能性,使得创新的回报增加,从而促进了经济增长;另一方面,较高的知识产权保护程度是通过征收较高的收入税税率实现的,这又降低了资本的边际回报,进而使得创新的回报减少。

Government is the main contributor to the protection of the intellectual property rights,and it could affect the strength of the protection of IPR by adjusting its input.This paper introduces imitation and the protection of IPR in an R&D-based endogenous growth model,and we test the relationship between the protection of IPR and economic growth.It is found that there exists an inverted-U relationship between the protection of IPR and the growth rate.The intuition is that,on the one hand,stronger IPR enhances economic growth by protecting innovators from imitation,thereby producing a positive effect on innovation.On the other hand,stronger IPR means higher income tax rate,which has a negative effect on the award of innovation.