Professional Documents
Culture Documents
outcome. If international agreements are not efficient in this sense, however, then
countries would evaluate the impact of IP on welfare while taking into account its
effect on international prices. Clearly, this could lead to a decline in global welfare.
For example, imagine that countries have committed to free trade. If IP for some good
X implies a reduction in the supply of some other good Y then the price of this good
would increase. If IP just barely makes the Home country implementing it better off,
then for the world as a whole (which necessarily sees a decline in TOT) this entails a
loss. Note, however, that this is a general feature of domestic policies implemented
by countries that affect international prices, and not something particular to IP.
Finally, we turn to the model where IP aims at promoting diversification. As in the
cases discussed above, the problem for global welfare may arise from the influence of IP
on international prices. Imagine that the cost of a policy to encourage “self-discovery”
just barely justifies the associated benefits. If such benefits include an improvement in a
country’s terms of trade (which would arise from the decline in the supply of the non-
diversified good), then the global efficiency would decline. Again, global efficiency
would necessarily increase from IP only if countries evaluate it while disregarding its
impact on international prices.