Effect of Intellectual Property Policy on the Speed of Technological Advancement

TL;DR

This study uses agent-based modeling to examine how different levels of intellectual property protection influence the rate of technological progress, finding that stronger protection generally accelerates advancement.

Contribution

It introduces an agent-based model to analyze the impact of intellectual property policies on technological development speed, considering diverse agent preferences.

Findings

Stronger intellectual property protection leads to faster technological progress.

Agent preferences influence the effectiveness of IP policies.

The model demonstrates varying outcomes based on policy strictness and agent behavior.

Abstract

In this paper, the agent-based modeling is employed to model the effect of intellectual property policy at the speed of technological advancement. Every agent has inborn preferences towards investing their capital into independent technological development, innovation appropriation, and production. The relative cost of appropriation compared to independent development is chosen as a measure of strictness of intellectual property protection. We vary this parameter and look at the performance of agents with different preferences and overall technological progress. In general, it is found that in the specific setting considered with stronger intellectual property protection leads to faster progress.