IP Rights Help Economies and Citizens
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 by Patrick RossIt should be considered common sense but it's always nice to have hard data to back it up — strong IP rights lead to wealthier nations and higher standards of living. Much higher.
The 2008 International Property Rights Index was released today, and as noted in the press release, people in countries that protect their physical and intellectual
property enjoy a GDP per capita up to nine times greater than those
without legal protection. The study examined 115 countries, representing 96% of the world's GDP, focusing on the legal and political environment, physical property rights, and intellectual property rights. The work involved 42 partner organizations across six continents.
While the study examined three factors, the ratings for IP strength closely mirrored the overall results, suggesting nations that respect physical property rights also respect intellectual property rights. The top country, Finland, had an overall ranking of 8.6, and its IP rating was just behind at 8.5. (All scores are on a 10-point scale.) The US came in 19th at 7.5, hurt by a low score on the legal and political environment, but had a physical property score of 8.0 and an IP score of 7.9. Halfway down the list at 59th was Sri Lanka with an overall score of 5.1 and the same IP score. At the bottom of the list was Bangladesh at 115th, with an overall score of 2.9, same as their IP score. Only a little over 10 countries had lower IP scores. Up and down the list, one sees a direct correlation between overall scores and IP scores. Methodology and data sources can be found here.
It would be extremely helpful if that small but loud chorus of naysayers about intellectual property were to read this report, look at the ordinals, and see if they'd like to increase their wealth and the nation's wealth by trying to overtake Finland, or if they'd rather have us drop even further until Bangladesh has a legitimate challenger for the bottom.
