Trade and Intellectual Property Rights in the Agricultural Seed Sector

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has continued to be fiercely debated between North and South, particularly with respect to its provisions for the agricultural sector. Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement requires WTO member countries to offer some form of intellectual property protection for new plant varieties, either in the form of patents (common in the U.S.) or plant breeder's rights (PBR). This paper analyzes the effects of the introduction of PBRs in almost 80 importing countries on the value of exports of agricultural seeds and planting material from 10 exporting EU countries, including all principal traditional exporters of seeds, as well as the US. A dynamic penalized fixed effects quantile regression model, based on a general specication for the gravity model for international trade, is estimated using panel data covering 19 years (1989-2007) of export flows in order to assess the effect of International Convention on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) membership on seed imports. Basing inference on the panel bootstrap, we find no signicant effect from UPOV membership on seed imports.