Intellectual Property Rights; International Trade; Agriculture; Gravity Model; Intensive Margin; Extensive Margin

O1; O34; Q17; F14

This paper studies the effect of strengthening intellectual property rights (IPRs) after the signing of the TRIPS on agricultural trade, for the period 1995-2011. It uses data of agricultural exports and a new yearly index of intellectual property (IP) protection, for 60 developed and developing countries. Also, the paper studies bilateral trade links and the intensive and extensive margins of trade using a gravity model. The estimates show that stronger IPRs systems aect negatively total exports and imports of agricultural products, especially for developing countries. At a more disaggregated level, we found heterogeneous results depending on the sub-sectors, but the correlation is negative for most of them.