Working Papers Series
Papers below are in pdf.
Vitor Trindade
WP 07-05
Networks, Standards and Intellectual Property Rights
Johannes Moenius and Vitor Trindade
This paper reviews issues that lie at the intersection between intellectual property rights (IPR) and network effects, especially in the context of the global economy. Some of the relevant questions are: (1) How do IPR influence the provision of goods exhibiting network effects? (2) How do network effects in turn influence the creation of intellectual property? And (3) how do aspects of the global economy interact with both IPR and network effects? We synthesize what is known from the existing literature to answer these questions.
JEL Codes: D85, F12, F13, F14, L14, O34
Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights, Network Effects, Globalization, Standards, Social Networks, Software Piracy
forthcoming as a chapter in: Intellectual Property, Growth, and Trade (Frontiers in Economic Research Series, Amsterdam: Elsevier-North Holland), Keith E. Maskus, editor, 2007.
WP 06-06
Inequality, Nonhomothetic Preferences, And Trade: A Gravity Approach
Muhammed Dalgin, Vitor Trindade and Devashish Mitra
We construct the first direct classification of goods as luxuries or necessities that is compatible with international trade data. We then use it to test an idea that has not been tested directly in the literature: countries’ income distributions are important determinants of their import demand, and in particular of the difference in their import demands of luxuries versus necessities. We interpret this result with the aid of a model in which preferences are nonhomothetic, thus relaxing a long-held and standard – but empirically dubious – assumption in the theory of international trade. Our model is strongly borne out by the results: imports of luxuries increase with importing country’s inequality, and imports of necessities decrease with it. Our calculations imply that if income distribution in the United States became as equal as in Canada, the US would import about 9 – 13% less in luxury goods and 13 – 19% more in necessity goods.
JEL Codes: D12, F12
Keywords: nonhomothetic tastes, gravity equation, inequality, luxuries, necessities