International protection of intellectual property rights: a stochastic frontier index

Abstract

This paper combines two bodies of work: the literature regarding the measurement of the strength of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection systems and stochastic production frontier efficiency analysis. We propose measuring the efficiency of IPR protection systems by comparing optimal production frontier of innovation to real results, through a measure based on the existing Stochastic Frontier Analysis of technical efficiency. Our results indicate that, despite imperfect datasets, this approach provides interesting results comparable to measures in Park (2008) and other IPR strength indicators. Some issues to be further explored longer datasets and richer information, and innovation measurements. This paper also adds some evidence to the idea of an inverted U relationship between innovation output and IPR protection system strength.