The impacts of trademarks and patents on labour productivity in the knowledge-intensive business service sectors

The economic and social roles of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are among the most puzzling mysteries of the current literature. The British Industrial Revolution initiate the era of a sustained economic growth all over the word and established institutions that have important effects even in the modern ages. This paper focuses on the determinants of labour productivity growth performance (in terms of the change in output per capita over time) of several OECD countries. In this conceptual framework several IPRs, such as trademarks and patents, are first analyzed in the context of knowledge intensive (business) service (hereafter KI(B)S) branches. In order to support both theoretical deductions and empirical findings of the literature a dynamic regression model is tested to clarify whether a valid relationship exists between output per capita and the number of patents and trademarks in the long run. The results of the regression analysis show that an increase in the number of trademarks and patents might correlate negatively with labour productivity growth in KI(B)S industries between 1995 and 2011. Hence, this conclusion also highlights that some institutional reforms are needed to change the current intellectual property right systems.