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Research has demonstrated that the effects of intellectual property right (IPR) protection on firm research and competitive strategies are varied. This dissertation quantifies the dynamic effects of IPR protection along different dimensions. First, I show that countries choose different levels of IPR protection and develop a model to replicate these differences. This model enables me to assess the quantitative effects of trade, as well as the welfare impacts of global harmonization to a single IPR standard. Second, I explore whether IPR protection in the US is too strong. I develop a model in which firms make production and innovation decisions conditional on endogenous technological spillovers. I fit the model to key moments from US data and show that weakening patent protection is welfare decreasing. Thirdly, I show that changing US IPR standards during the 1980s had little real effect on the US Semiconductor industry vis-a-vis exogenous changes in market demand. / text

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Limitations on the customizability of property rights (the numerus clausus principle) are a puzzling feature of the common law conception of property. An economic rationale, built upon 1) the pivotal role that rules of exclusion play in fostering user innovation, and 2) the role that psychological ownership plays in preventing recontracting around governance rules, is offered to explain the modern persistence of the doctrine. Application of the numerus clausus principle limits the proliferation of governance rules in the economy (governance), replacing them with rules of exclusion (exclusion). Exclusion unifies rights of use and possession in assets, while governance separates, to a greater or lesser degree, possession from use rights. Full user, sale and the policy against restraints on alienation are the paradigmatic examples of exclusion; while governance is exemplified by servitudes and contractually-burdened assets. Exclusion plays a critical role in user innovation because it allows the possessors of assets to unilaterally seek out new uses of those assets. Whenever the law replaces governance with exclusion, user innovation is more likely to occur because the possessors of assets can apply their unique, rival and nontransferable human capital inputs to tangible assets, generating outputs (the new uses) that move resources to their higher-value uses. This is how all innovation, both high-tech and low-tech, occurs. In addition to negatively impacting user innovation, governance hinders recontracting because both possession and legal entitlements (rights of use in an asset) give rise to feelings of psychological ownership, and individuals will not recontract over uses that they feel they already ‘own’. The user innovation theory’s focus on search, innovation and human capital explains why the numerus clausus principle remains most robust in the areas of personal and intellectual property (where users generate a significant amount of innovation), and why it has been somewhat attenuated in the area of real property (where we restrict search in order to facilitate coordination of land uses). It also explains why the law enforces the principle even when the cost of providing notice of governance rules is low.

Because of the importance attached to intangible assets in the modern world, the remedies for intellectual property infringement have been brought under the spotlight.  In this background, there has been an increased interest regarding the scope and desirability of using criminal sanctions for the protection of IPR, especially in cases involving commercial-scale counterfeiting and piracy.  However, this development has been received with mixed sentiments, with some commentators criticising the legitimacy of using criminal law for the protection of private property rights. This thesis undertakes a search for a coherent justification for criminalising intellectual property infringement.  The thesis also attempts to demonstrate the evolution and progression of criminal enforcement of IPR at the international level.  Furthermore, the thesis analyses crosscutting issues encountered by developing countries when enforcing criminal sanctions, thereby explaining the reluctance to reform criminal remedies for IPR infringement in these countries.  The thesis identifies criminal sanctions as a desirable remedy for countering the rising threat of piracy and counterfeiting.  It also highlights the achievements and shortcomings of multilateral actions taken thus far in relation to criminal IPR enforcement, thereby providing valuable insights for future negotiations.  Finally, it emphasises that a criminal IPR enforcement regime in any jurisdiction should be evaluated with caution, giving due consideration to other economic development interests and priorities of developing countries.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / The general aim of this thesis was to test the extent to which the children had learned the property rights concept, and not the extent to which they had been able to integrate their knowledge of these rights with their actual behavior. More specifically it was the purpose of this study to discover (1) whether there was any differentiation between a second grader's understanding of property that was brand new and if property that had been used for a long time, (2) whether a child in the second grade differentiated in his understanding of property which was considered valuable and property which was not considered valuable, (3) whether children in the study differentiated in their understanding of property of different types, (4) whether there was any correlation between knowledge of property rights that second grade children had and nursery school training, number of siblings, status of siblings, Sunday School training, sex, age, and socio-economic status.

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