Intellectual property rights, growth, and technology diffusion

This dissertation studies the effect of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on growth and technology diffusion from an international perspective. For this purpose, a scalar measure of the level of intellectual property protection was created for 110 countries in the period 1960-90. The dissertation finds that growth and technology diffusion depend positively on IPRs. Furthermore, it is found that a country's strength of protection depends most significantly on the size of its research sector and on the extent of its support for free markets.