Intellectual Property Rights and Agricultural Development: Evidence from a Worldwide Index of IPRs in Agriculture (1961-2018)

Abstract

This paper revises and updates the Campi-Nuvolari index of intellectual property protection for plant varieties. The new index provides yearly scores for the period 1961–2018 for 104 countries, which have legislation on plant variety protection in force. The new evidence highlights the ongoing shift towards more similar and stronger systems of intellectual property rights (IPRs) worldwide, regardless of individual characteristics of countries. The signing of the TRIPS and trade agreements with TRIPS-Plus provisions are major drivers of this process. In addition, certain characteristics of countries such as the regulatory environment, the level of human capital, the importance of agricultural production, and openness to trade, are also significant determinants of the evolution of IPRs systems. We conclude by discussing other possible applications of the data.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

Supplementary Materials are available for this article which can be accessed via the online version of this journal available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2020.1817395.

Notes

1. For further details on the methodology and robustness checks, see: Campi and Nuvolari (2015).

2. The updates are available at: http://fs2.american.edu/wgp/www/.

3. Despite our best efforts, the data may still be affected by mistakes in the source data, errors induced by the conversion of images to readable documents, or translations.

4. The classification of countries by development level is based on the World Bank classification in 2012 (https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups). High-income countries are considered as developed countries, while middle- and low-income countries (i.e., those with GNI per capita less than 12,175 dollars in 2012) are considered as less developed or developing countries. Our results are not affected if, instead of using the 2012 distinction between developed and developing countries, one adopts that of 1995.

5. In a study for the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights developed in 2002, Thorpe (2002) argued that very few developing countries were still denying patent protection for pharmaceutical products. All but three of the 30 least developed countries in Africa were already providing patents for such products despite not having to comply so until 2016, a period that was later extended until 2033. See: https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news15_e/trip_06nov15_e.htm

6. The classification of countries in net food-exporters and net food-importers is based on United Nations: http://unctadstat.unctad.org/EN/Classifications.html

7. In constant 2004-2006 1,000 international dollars. The value of net production is computed by multiplying net production in physical terms by output prices at the farm gate. The value of production measures production in monetary terms at the farm gate level. See: FAO http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QV/QV_e.pdf.

8. Developed countries were granted a transition period of one year after the entry into force of the WTO Agreement, this is until 1 January 1996. Developing countries and transition economies were allowed a further period of four years (until 1 January 2000). Least-developed countries were granted a longer transition period of eleven years (until 1 January 2006), which was extended to 1 July 2021, and more recently until at least 2033. See detailed information on transition periods at: www.wto.org/english/theWTO_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm7_e.htm, accessed on August 2020.

9. See: www.wipo.int and www.wto.org.

10. We also estimated the model with different numbers of lags and the results hold. Results are available upon request.

11. We also estimated the models for the full sample of countries using robust standard errors clustered by development levels of countries. Although some coefficients become statistically non-significant, the main results of the exercise still hold.