Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T13:59:23.584Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On assessing the cost of TRIPS implementation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2003

TRAVIS J. LYBBERT
TRAVIS J. LYBBERT
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Efforts to ensure that intellectual property rights are respected and protected world-wide have met increasing resistance by critics who see extreme imbalances in the costs and benefits of implementing stronger intellectual property protection. The WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) attracts particular criticism as an enforceable multilateral embodiment of these efforts. While few disagree that developed countries stand to benefit more in the short term from TRIPS implementation than developing countries, precisely estimating associated costs and benefits is challenging. This paper comments on an approach to estimating the ‘indirect’ costs of implementing TRIPS proposed by McCalman (2001) and argues that the approach overestimates the costs born by developing countries. Specifically, this overestimation is due primarily to an inadequate representation of the TRIPS Agreement and a counterfactual assumption that countries would not have strengthened their intellectual property policies in the absence of the TRIPS Agreement.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , November 2002 , pp. 309 - 321
Copyright
© 2002 Travis J. Lybbert

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I gratefully acknowledge Jayashree Watal for her contributions to this commentary and Adrian Otten for his input, both of whom provided invaluable insights into technicalities of the TRIPS Agreement. I also thank Phillip McCalman and Keith Maskus for their helpful reactions to an earlier draft, as well as two referees. This note was prepared during an internship with the Intellectual Property Division of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The opinions expressed in this commentary are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the WTO, its Members or the Secretariat.