IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea03/22187.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Welfare Impacts of Property Rights in the Seed Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Lence, Sergio H.
  • Hayes, Dermot J.
  • McCunn, Alan
  • Smith, Stephen C.
  • Niebur, Bill

Abstract

The paper examines the welfare impact of different intellectual property right (IPR) regimes in private sector seed research. The model takes into account the period after expiration of IPR protection, and requires a simultaneous equilibrium in the markets for R&D, seeds, and final product (grain). Simulation results show that with the exception of R&D productivity, the optimal level of IPR protection is remarkably insensitive to parameters of the model. There is a range of IPR appropriability levels where the interests of consumers and producers (taken together) are complementary to the interests of R&D firms, and another range of appropriability levels where the welfare of producers and consumers can be increased only at the expense of the welfare R&D firms. These results may explain some of the acrimony in the debate about plant gene patenting and genetic use-restriction technologies (GURTs). Results suggest that the optimum IPR appropriability level is greater than that which exists in the North American seed corn market, but lower than would exist if GURTs were to become widely used. The optimal appropriability level is much higher than that which is achieved in situations where crops are open pollinated or where IPR protection is limited, and this may help explain and justify the relevance of public research in these situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Lence, Sergio H. & Hayes, Dermot J. & McCunn, Alan & Smith, Stephen C. & Niebur, Bill, 2003. "Welfare Impacts of Property Rights in the Seed Industry," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22187, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea03:22187
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.22187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/22187/files/sp03le02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.22187?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giancarlo Moschini & Harvey Lapan, 1997. "Intellectual Property Rights and the Welfare Effects of Agricultural R&D," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(4), pages 1229-1242.
    2. Rausser, Gordon C & Freebairn, John W, 1974. "Estimation of Policy Preference Functions: An Application to U.S. Beef Import Quotas," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(4), pages 437-449, November.
    3. Alston, Julian M. & Venner, Raymond J., 2002. "The effects of the US Plant Variety Protection Act on wheat genetic improvement," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 527-542, May.
    4. Pardey, Philip G. & Beintema, Nienke M., 2001. "Slow magic: agricultural R&D a century after Mendel," Food policy statements 36, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Nepelski & Giuditta De Prato, 2012. "Does the Patent Cooperation Treaty work? A global analysis of patent applications by non-residents," JRC Research Reports JRC79541, Joint Research Centre, revised Nov 2012.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wright, Brian D. & Pardey, Philip G. & Nottenburg, Carol & Koo, Bonwoo, 2007. "Agricultural Innovation: Investments and Incentives," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: Robert Evenson & Prabhu Pingali (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 48, pages 2533-2603, Elsevier.
    2. Alston, Julian M. & Wyatt, T. J. & Pardey, Philip G. & Marra, Michele C. & Chan-Kang, Connie, 2000. "A meta-analysis of rates of return to agricultural R & D: ex pede Herculem?," Research reports 113, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Nolan, Elizabeth & Santos, Paulo, 2009. "Evidence for increasing concentration in plant breeding industries in the United States and the European Union," 2009 Conference (53rd), February 11-13, 2009, Cairns, Australia 48060, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    4. Koo, Bonwoo & Pardey, Philip G. & Qian, Keming & Zhang, Yi, 2003. "The economics of generating and maintaining plant variety rights in China:," EPTD discussion papers 100, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Sergio H. Lence & Dermot J. Hayes, 2008. "Welfare Impacts of Cross-Country Spillovers in Agricultural Research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(1), pages 197-215.
    6. Bonwoo Koo & Philip G. Pardey & Keming Qian & Yi Zhang, 2006. "An option perspective on generating and maintaining plant variety rights in China," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 35(1), pages 35-48, July.
    7. Kremer, Michael & Zwane, Alix Peterson, 2005. "Encouraging Private Sector Research for Tropical Agriculture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 87-105, January.
    8. Thirtle, Colin G. & Srinivasan, Chittur S. & Heisey, Paul W., 2001. "Public Sector Plant Breeding In A Privatizing World," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33775, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    9. Derek Eaton, 2013. "Innovation and IPRs in the Agricultural Seed Sector," CIES Research Paper series 19-2013, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    10. Deepthi Elizabeth Kolady & William Lesser, 2009. "But are they Meritorious? Genetic Productivity Gains under Plant Intellectual Property Rights," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 62-79, February.
    11. Pardey, Philip G. & Koo, Bonwoo & Nottenburg, Carol, 2004. "Creating, Protecting, And Using Crop Biotechnologies Worldwide In An Era Of Intellectual Property," Staff Papers 13600, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    12. Malla, Stavroula & Gray, Richard S., 2001. "An Analytical And Empirical Analysis Of The Private Biotech R&D Incentives," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20544, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Mehdi Arzandeh & Derek G. Brewin, 2021. "R&D Investments in Plant Breeding under Changing Intellectual Property Rights," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 11(6), pages 32-47.
    14. Eaton, Derek, 2014. "A model of IPRs in the international supply chain of seeds and agricultural production," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182643, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Alston, Julian M. & Freebairn, John W. & James, Jennifer S., 2004. "Levy-funded research choices by producers and society," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-32.
    16. Lesser, William H., 2000. "An Economic Approach To Identifying An 'Effective Sui Generis System' For Plant Variety Protection Unders Trips," Transitions in Agbiotech: Economics of Strategy and Policy, June 24-25, 1999, Washington, D.C. 25996, Regional Research Project NE-165 Private Strategies, Public Policies, and Food System Performance.
    17. Hareau, Guy Gaston & Norton, George W. & Mills, Bradford F. & Peterson, Everett B., 2004. "Potential Benefits Of Transgenic Rice In Asia: A General Equilibrium Approach," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20334, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    18. Rausser, Gordon C. & de Gorter, Harry, 1988. "Endogenizing Policy In Models Of Agricultural Markets," 1988 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Knoxville, Tennessee 270460, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Adrien Hervouet & Marc Baudry, 2011. "Promoting innovation in the seed market and biodiversity: the role of IPRs and commercialization rules," Post-Print hal-02012239, HAL.
    20. Becker, Tilman & Labson, B. Stephan, 1991. "Optimal Policy Instruments and Political Preference Functions: An Application to the U.S. Wheat Sector," 1991 Annual Meeting, August 4-7, Manhattan, Kansas 271212, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crop Production/Industries;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea03:22187. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.