@techreport{06333750858e4ff484213a29a6fe35a1,
title = "Growth and Welfare Effects of Intellectual Property Rights when Consumers Differ in Income",
abstract = "This paper analyzes how changing the expected length of intellectual property (IP) protection T affects economic growth and the welfare of rich and poor consumers. The analysis is based on a product-variety model with non-homothetic preferences and endogenous markups in which, in accordance with empirical evidence, rich households consume a larger variety of goods than poorer ones. It is shown that growth is independent of T when there is perfect equality and that T can only substantially affect growth when there is a suffcient degree of inequality. When there is inequality, an increase in T that is applied to both new and previously granted innovations increases growth. A reduction in T that affects only new, but not previously granted innovations, can increase growth if wealth inequality is suffciently high. In the case where increasing T increases growth, poorer households prefer a shorter length of protection T than richer ones.",
keywords = "intellectual property rights, income distribution, endogenous growth, non-homothetic preferences, intellectual property rights, income distribution, endogenous growth, non-homothetic preferences",
author = "Christian Kiedaisch",
year = "2020",
month = nov,
day = "7",
doi = "https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-020-01322-9",
language = "English",
series = "Economic Theory",
publisher = "Springer New York",
type = "WorkingPaper",
institution = "Springer New York",
}