Growth Lab Seminar: Trade, Innovation and Optimal Patent Protection

Speaker: Thomas Sampson, Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics

Location: HYBRID Perkins Rubenstein 429 / Zoom

Whether attending in person or virtually, please register in advance.

Abstract: Intellectual property rights are a recurrent source of tensions between developed and developing economies. This paper provides the first quantitative analysis of optimal patent policy in trading economies. We develop a new model of trade, growth and patenting in which patent protection affects both innovation and market power. The model is estimated using data on patent applications to calibrate patent protection by country and the geography of innovation. Counterfactual analysis yields three main results. First, the potential gains from international cooperation over patent policies are large. However, achieving these gains requires more innovative economies to offer stronger protection. Second, only a small share of these gains has been realized so far. And third, by pushing towards policy harmonization, the TRIPS agreement hurts developing countries without generating global welfare gains. Overall, there is substantial scope for policy reforms to increase efficiency.

Link to the paper:

https://personal.lse.ac.uk/sampsont/TradePatents.pdf

Bio: Thomas Sampson is an Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, where he has taught since 2011. He earned his PhD from Harvard University, focusing on international trade and labor. Prior to his current role, he served as a consultant for organizations such as the Bank of England, the World Bank, and the Bank of Papua New Guinea. His research explores questions at the intersection of trade policy, economic growth, and innovation, including the impact of Brexit on the UK economy. Thomas is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and an Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance.