Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/173409 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 221
Version Description: 
Revised version
Publisher: 
University of Zurich, Department of Economics, Zurich
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes how changing the expected length of intellectual property (IP) protection 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. The effects of IP protection on growth can be either positive or negative, depending on the distribution of income and wealth. Given that increasing the length of IP protection increases growth, poorer households prefer a shorter length of protection than richer ones.
Subjects: 
intellectual property rights
income distribution
endogenous growth
nonhomothetic preferences
JEL: 
O34
O31
L16
D30
O15
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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