Intellectual property rights and law enforcement in developing countries

Abstract

The attitudes of developing countries for intellectual property rights (IPR) regulations and law enforcement are ambiguous. We seek to clarify this issue by structuring a model, simultaneously considering the IPR index and the strength of law enforcement of China in period 1996–2015. Firstly, the government of a developing country always holds the strictest attitude towards law enforcement. Secondary, the growing level of IPR leads to the decrease of the total welfare, but the decline of total welfare slows down. Third, the motivation of maximising total welfare induces the governments of developing countries to strengthen law enforcement. This provides internal motivation for development. The findings of this article show that developing countries have long-term internal motivations to improve their strength of IPR levels and law enforcement.