Intellectual Property Rights Protection, International Technology Spillovers And Economic Growth

New economic growth theory makes technical progress the ultimate source to maintain long-term sustainable growth of a country's economy, and independent innovation and international technology diffusion are main means of technological progress in developing countries. Since huge gap in technology exists among most developing and developed countries and any technology has a different degree of externalities and spillovers, in open conditions, technology transfer and imitation have become the important path for technological progress and access to technology catch-up effect for developing countries. The intellectual property protection is the most important institutional arrangements not only to stimulate domestic technological innovation but also to affect the choice of international trade, FDI and technology licensing for transnational corporations, which ultimately affect a country's economic growth.In addition, as a part of WTO rule system, TRIPS Agreement brings the intangible assets intellectual property into tangible economic goods and services trade, requires all member states must be more effective in intellectual property protection, implements the minimum level of IPR protection in TRIPS Agreement s, therefore, the implementation of TRIPS Agreement implies the world has entered a high level of IPR protection and efficient international stage. Since the level of IP protection in developed countries is generally higher, the protection of intellectual property is relatively backward in the relevant policies in developing countries and major reforms of laws and regulations should be expected and the main burden of strengthening intellectual property protection that TRIPS Agreement members agreed falls on the shoulders of developing countries. Therefore, under the protection of intellectual property rights of international technology spillovers and in particular the technology spillover effects in international trade and FDI on produc(?)ivity in developing countries are of great importance and significance.In order to study the relationship between economic growth and international technology spillovers under the protection of intellectual property rights, this thesis carries on the combined theoretical deduction and empirical research based on relevant theoretical and empirical analysis of research results. The thesis carries on the theoretical analysis based on endogenous economic growth theory with new classical economics, new economic growth theory, new theories of international trade theory to analyze and discuss the intellectual property protection on international technology spillovers and economic growth. Empirical study is divided into the macro-level study of the impact of international technology spillovers under intellectual property protection on productivity and the micro-level study of the impact of intellectual property protection in enterprises on the innovation inputs that determines the international innovation and technological spillover. Based on Coe and Helpman knowledge-driven growth model, macro-level research firstly introduces the variable intensity of intellectual property protection to constitute an econometric international technology spillover effect model under the protection of intellectual property, and secondly to use the national total economic data and inter-provincial panel data to explore China's the international technology spillover effect under current intellectual property rights protection on China's total factor productivity. Based on large sample survey data of 1454 manufacturing enterprises in Zhejiang Province, micro-level study firstly constructs a micro-level indicator of corporate intellectual property protection, secondly to analyze the impact of intellectual property protection in enterprise on innovation inputs that determines the international technology spillover with quantitative analysis, thirdly to investigate the independent innovation capability of enterprises that determines the endogenous growth with the features, industry distribution and output performance of R & D investment in enterprises. Based on the different research perspectives and purposes, different approaches are applied for research. The main approaches in the thesis are statistical analysis, regression analysis, ridge regression analysis, nonparametric analysis, time series analysis, panel data model and so on.The following are the main conclusions obtained in this thesis:1. Under open economic conditions, China's current strength of intellectual property protection exerts a positive effect on the technology spillovers of foreign trade and foreign investment, FDI is even more sensitive to China's IPR protection system. Domestic R&D inputs have significant role in promoting technological advances, and the International Technology Diffusion under the intellectual property protection rights has become an important external thrust in China's economic growth.2. The strength of intellectual property legislation in China at current stage has been close to or even surpassed the level of developed countries, while the enforcement of intellectual property rights in China is significantly weaker, and the overall protection strength of the intellectual property rights is still low. The empirical results show that the low level of overall IPR protection in China weakens the absorption level of the technology spillovers of foreign FDI and the contribution of technology spillover effects of foreign investment on China's technological progress.3. The current strength of IPR protection of China's provinces and autonomous regions showed a significant promoting role on international trade channels of knowledge spillover; and the domestic R&D investment and human capital are the major drivers of China's economic growth, human capital is the most important factor in rapid development of eastern China, and R&D investment is particularly important on economic development in central and western regions.4. Great regional differences are observed in regions with the role of intellectual property protection on technology spillovers through foreign channels, of which the current strength of intellectual property protection is conducive to FDI technology spillover channels in Western region, while the relationships are not sure in Eastern and Central regions, and even negative effect are obtained because of low level of IPR protection. 5. The findings from the micro-enterprise level indicate that corporate intellectual property protection has significantly promoted the enterprise's innovation investment that determines the international technological spillovers. An inverted U relationship is observed between enterprise's scale and its innovation investment, and even exerts a scale "inflection point." Standardization requires in developed countries has positively promoting the technological innovation investment of Chinese enterprises.6. Statistical analysis of survey data indicate that the current capability of independent innovation of Chinese enterprises relatively weak, the digestion and absorption of introduced technology and its secondary innovation capacity are relatively low, the development and application level of some common and key technologies in leading industries significantly lags behind the international advanced level, and some basic core patented technologies are controlled by foreign transnational corporations. In addition, taken the perspective of industry feature, the thesis finds that greater gap exists in domestic high-tech areas and foreign corporations such as microelectronics, computers, communications equipment and digital home appliances industry.