On the strength of intellectual property protection that nations provide

Researchers studying the commitment of countries to intellectual property rights run into the claim that the technology-haves (the developed countries) opt for relatively stronger protection of intellectual property, whereas the technology-have-nots (the developing countries) opt for weaker protection. It is but a short step from this assertion to the claim that this results in huge trade losses for the former. Using cross-national panel data for 1981-2000 we find that the evidence is only weakly consistent with this conjecture at best; and that the technology-have-nots more likely provided weaker protection due to paucity of financial resources and human capital, and their inward-looking trade-orientation.