Status of national intellectual property rights (IPRs) systems and its impact to agricultural development: a time series cross section data analysis of TRIPS member-countries

This study aimed to quantify the importance of strengthened IPRs policies on agricultural development of members of trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS). Setting the global IPR standards today, TRIPS is an important international agreement to study while the importance of agriculture to the economies of TRIPS member-countries makes it a bellwether for gauging the impact of TRIPS on agricultural development. Specifically, this study estimated the impact of strengthened IPR systems using a time series cross section data of 103 TRIPS member countries using secondary data from 1980 to 2005. Empirical results support a link between strengthened IPR systems and agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) not only for developed countries but also for developing member-economies of TRIPS.