Strategic Public Policy Toward Agricultural Biotechnology with Externalities in Developing Countries

Abstract

Game theory and numerical simulation analyze the host government’s role in strategically regulating intellectual property rights (IPRs) for agricultural biotechnology in a developing country. A foreign monopolist imports and sells a genetically modified crop variety that will offer the host country both selective productivity gains and a negative externality. In this small open economy, only some heterogeneous producers adopt the new variety. Public policy consists of IPR enforcement and a corrective tax. Effectiveness of the tax depends upon the foreign monopolist’s ability to alter the price of the new technology and upon whether or not there is full enforcement of the IPRs. Whereas some governments may see their key decisions as being whether or not to license and to enforce IPRs on a genetically modified crop variety, greater gain might be realized through strategic choice of the tax rate to influence the rate of adoption among diverse domestic producers.