Intellectual Property Rights and North-South Trade

We study the incentive that a government in the South has to protect the intellectual property rights of Northern firms, and the consequences of the decision taken by the South for welfare in the North and for efficiency of the world equilibrium. We conduct our analysis in the context of a competition between a single Northern producer and a single Southern producer selling some good to an integrated world market. In this competition, only the Northern firm has the ability to conduct R&D in order to lower its production costs, but the Southern firm can imitate costlessly if patent protection for process innovations is not enforced by the government of the South. We find that the interests of the North and the South generally conflict in the matter of protection of intellectual property, with the South benefiting from the ability to pirate technology and the North harmed by such actions. A strong system of intellectual property rights may or may not enhance world efficiency.

Compulsory Licensing of Technology and the Essential Facilities Doctrine

We consider compulsory licensing of intellectual property as a remedy for anticompetitive practices. We identify aspects of intellectual property that could warrant a different remedy from those developed for access to physical essential facilities. Based on the analysis, we present a characterisation of optimal compulsory licensing for a simple market. We find that royalty payments offer a greater range of choices to a regulator than fixed fees. Thus, even though the marginal cost of supplying access to intellectual property is zero, some unit charging is likely to be efficient.essential facilities, intellectual property, access price, royalty, investment

Static inefficiency of compulsory licensing: Quantity vs. price competition.

A common argument against compulsory licensing of intellectual property maintains that it facilitates the entry of inefficient producers, which may reduce social welfare independently of any effects on R and D incentives. We study the issue in a model where the innovative firm, under the threat of compulsory licensing, react strategically by choosing between quantity and price competition. We show that the risk of a reduction in static welfare due to the entry of highly inefficient firms is avoided if licensing entails a royalty per unit of output and zero fixed fee. The rationale behind this result lies in the fact that compulsory licensing threat works as a disciplining device to improve static social welfare, even when the applicant is a high cost inefficient firm.compulsory licensing, essential facilities, entry, welfare

Price-Capping Regulation as a Protectionist Strategy in Developing Countries

In developing countries undergoing liberalising economic reforms, there are typically local incumbents facing the loss of protection. Strategic lobbying by such firms for a price-capping regulatory regime is, under certain conditions, one way in which they can deter entry by competitors who are likely to be foreign firms. We show that a regulatory price can be set such that the net profit of the entrant is lower than the entry cost thus deterring entry. We then show that it is possible for the profit of the incumbent to be greater under regulation which deters entry than under unregulated duopoly. Counter-intuitively, we further discover that lobbying for regulation is to be expected where the incumbent firm is relatively cost-efficient. Finally, we consider the case of multiple incumbents threatened by entry. We observe a co- ordination problem and consider the possibility of co-operation in lobbying. We then show that such co-operation, if possible, is always preferable to non-co-operation.Price-capping, regulation, lobbying, incumbents, entrants, free-riding, co-operation

Licensing by a monopolist and unionized labor market

We show that a monopolist final goods producer may find it profitable to create competition by licensing its technology if the input market is imperfectly competitive. With a centralized union, we show that licensing by a monopolist is profitable under both uniform and discriminatory wage settings by the union. However, the incentive for licensing is higher under the former situation. We also show that licensing by the monopolist is profitable under both quantity and price competition, and the incentive for licensing is higher under price competition than under quantity competition. Our qualitative results hold even with decentralized unions. --Licensing,Labor union,Price competition,Quantity competition

Open Source Licensing in Mixed Markets, or Why Open Source Software Does Not Succeed

The rivalry between developers of open source and proprietary software encourages open source developers to court users and respond to their needs. If the open source developer wants to promote her own open source standard and solutions, she may choose liberal license terms such as those of the Berkeley Software Distribution as proprietary developers will then find it easier to adopt her standard in their products. If she wants to promote the use of open source software per se, she may use more restrictive license terms such as the General Public License to discourage proprietary appropriation of her effort. I show that open source software that comes late into a market will be less likely than more innovative open source software to be compatible with proprietary software, but is also more likely to be made more accessible to inexperienced users.Open Source; Software; Standards; Compatibility; Network Effects; Duopoly; Mixed Markets; Intellectual Property; Copyright; Licensing

A Cross-Licensing System Discourages R&D Investments In Completely Complementary Technologies

We consider the research and development (R&D) investment com petition of duopolistic firms in completely complementary technologies. By "completely complementary technologies," we mean that no firm can produce the goods without both of the technologies. We derive the investments competition equilibria in R&D of the two completely complementary technologies with and without a cross-licensing system. By comparing R&D investment levels in the two equilibria, we show that the cross-licensing system discourages the R&D invest ments when the duopolistic firms produce goods by using the two completely complementary technologies.completely complementary technologies, cross-licensing system, R&D investments

Price-Capping regulation as a protectionist strategy in developing countries

In developing countries undergoing liberalising reforms, there are typically local incumbents facing the loss of protection. Strategic lobbying by such firms for a price-capping regulatory regime can deter entry. We show that a regulatory price can be set such that the net profit of the entrant is lower than the entry cost thus deterring entry and that it is possible for the profit of the incumbent to be greater under regulation than under unregulated duopoly. We consider the case of multiple incumbents threatened by entry and also extend our analysis to incorporate lobbying by the entrant.entrant, incumbent, lobbying, price-capping regulation