The Diffusion of Innovations to Developing Countries: The Impacts of Varying Property Right Regimes in the Agricultural Sector

This paper presents a panel study of yield developments in the eight main crops over the period from 1961 to 1999 and shows that for most crops, there is absolute convergence to developed-country levels over that time period. Where convergence fails to occur, this can be explained by the exceptionally low rate of diffusion of innovations from developed to developing countries for some crops. We argue that "strong" forms of protection for intellectual property right claims provide a convincing explanation for the presence of these low diffusion rates for these particular crops. If this is the case, then the distribution of the benefits from an effective intellectual property rights regime will depend on the initial position of the country concerned relative to the technological frontier. The existence of this innovation-diffusion trade-off highlights the problematic international welfare implications inherent in choosing a particular regime of intellectual property protection.