This Paper develops a model for analysing the costs and benefits of intellectual property enforcement in LDCs. The North is more productive than the South and is the only source of innovator. There are two types of goods, and each bloc has a comparative advantage in producing a specific type of...

Advances in communication technology make it possible for workers in India to supply business services to head offices located anywhere. This has the potential to put high-wage workers in direct competition with much lower paid Indian workers. Service trade, however, like goods trade, is subject...

How can we explain the success of cooperative networks of firms that share innovations, such as Silicon Valley or the Open Source community? This Paper shows that if innovations are cumulative, making an invention publicly available to a network of firms may be valuable if the firm expects to...

In this paper we argue that employment protection legislation is more likely to arise when the rents earned by the employed over their alternative wage is greater. The model explains why economies with greater real wage rigidity also have greater employment protection. The model also predicts...

If redistribution is distortionary, and if the income of skilled workers is due to knowledge-intensive activities and depends positively on intellectual property, a social planner which cares about income distribution may in principle want to use a reduction in Intellectual Property Rights...

This Paper studies a model of the distribution of income under bounded needs. Utility derived from any given good reaches a bliss point at a finite consumption level of that good. On the other hand, introducing new varieties always increases utility. It is assumed that each variety is owned by a...

This paper analyzes empirically the relationship between civil wars and international trade. We first show that trade destruction due to civil wars is very large and persistent and increases with the severity of the conflict. We then test the presence of two effects that trade can have on the...

This paper develops a model to analyse the implications of firing costs on incentives for R&D and international specialization. The key idea is that, to avoid paying firing costs, the country with a rigid labour market will tend to produce relatively secure goods, at late stages in their product...

Investigations of the effect of quality differences on heterogeneous performance in exporting have been limited by lack of direct measures of quality. We examine exports of French wine, matching the exporting firms to producer ratings from two wine guides. We show that high quality producers...

This Paper discusses a number of issues in the context of the debate on intellectual property in less developed countries (LDCs). It starts by discussing the consequences of IP enforcement in LDCs for global innovation and welfare in poorer countries. It then considers the costs and benefits of...